Just a follow-up to this morning's Brooklyn Black-headed Gull sighting. A big thanks to Sean Sime for posting to the list for me.
This morning Heydi Lopes and I spent a couple of hours birding around Coney Island, first along the South side of the peninsula, then along Coney Island Creek and Gravesend Bay. It became very obvious early on that we wouldn't be seeing much in the pea soup fog conditions. At the fishing pier off Coney Island's boardwalk we probably heard more birds than we saw. Male Long-tailed Ducks have begun courting and their yodeling "ow-owdle-ow, ow-owdle-ow" calls drifted in and out of the haze. I expected to see a lot of gull roosting on the beach but, for whatever reason, there were very few … even at the usual roosts. The conditions on the North side of the peninsula were better only in that we were out of the wind. Again, there were very few gulls present. Foolish optimism had us pushing on, however, and we walked the approximately 1/2 mile West to Norton Point (my new favorite Brooklyn Winter birding spot). There were a few of the expected gulls on the jetty, as well as, many Long-tailed Ducks, a few Red-breasted Mergansers and a single scaup close to shore, but nothing unusual. On a patch of grass above the seawall behind us a small flock of Snow Buntings foraged in the stubbly grass. We decided to persevere and wait for the fog to lift, which it did very briefly. At 10:10am the sky brightened and the fog lifted to the point were we could see several ships anchored in the lower harbor and the tops of the Verrazano Bridge towers floating above a thin layer of fog. We were taking some photos of the unusual conditions when I noticed a gull flying along the edge of the water coming from our right. I thought it was a Bonaparte's Gull, but as it got close I saw the red bill and casually mentioned that it was the Black-headed Gull. The bird passed within 15-20 yards of us, Heydi managing to shoot a couple of record photos. The bird was closely following the shoreline around the point, flying into the wind roughly South-East, then East and out of view. It's difficult to predict this bird's routine. However, over the years when one has been present around coastal Brooklyn, they tend to like the water treatment plant at Owl's Head Park and the adjacent Veterans Memorial Pier, along the promenade at Gravesend Bay and now Coney Island Creek Park/Norton's Point. I believe that Shane Blodgett also has a sighting of one along the Western beach at Coney Island from a few years ago. Maybe they follow a feeding route along Gravesend Bay and the Lower Harbor between Brooklyn and Staten Island. I hope this helps for anyone trying to track this gull down. Good birding, Rob http://citybirder.blogspot.com @thecitybirder -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
