The 76th Southern Nassau County CBC, 2 Jan 2016 A record 86 participants conducted the Southern Nassau County Christmas Bird Count on 2 January, 2016, a pleasant early winter day. The intensive coverage and favorable conditions yielded an excellent total of 130 species, above our 20-year average of 128, despite the relative absence of boreal irruptive species this year.
There were many unusual species, defined here operationally as those occurring in four or fewer of the past ten years. An Osprey recorded by the Atlantic and Baldwin parties was, rather surprisingly, the first ever recorded on count-day in Southern Nassau County (there was a count-week occurrence in 1996-97). There were two second-ever occurrences: a Lark Sparrow in Atlantic, and two Common Ravens in Massapequa. A distinction between these two is evident in that the prior Lark Sparrow occurred exactly 38 years earlier, on 2 Jan 1978, whereas ravens broke into our record books just two years ago, on 28 Dec 2013, and are becoming an expected component of Long Island’s winter avifauna. Two other big, black scavengers are also on the rise: a Turkey Vulture in Mitchell was just the third ever for the count, but is also nevertheless in line with a general regional increase; and this year’s two Bald Eagles represent the species’ tenth ever occurrence on the count, but the fourth consecutive in a new era of regular occurrence. Another raptor recorded for the fourth time in the last ten years was a Short-eared Owl on the barrier beach, but it’s hard to imagine a more contrasting narrative, relative to that of Bald Eagle. Whereas each has occurred on four of the last ten counts, the eagles have outnumbered the owls by seven to four in that interval. In contrast to these recent trends is a recent past that has become almost unrecognizable, when a single Bald Eagle was outnumbered by 114 Short-eared Owls during the decade 1961-70. One of the more remarkable results of this year’s count involved three Pine Warblers from three separate territories (Tobay, Loop, and Mitchell). This was paralleled to some extent by four Orange-crowned Warblers from four territories, but Pine Warbler had occurred only six times ever in prior years, compared to 30 for Orange-crowned Warbler, which has outflanked Palm Warbler and Common Yellowthroat in recent decades and emerged as our second most likely warbler, after Myrtle. Other notable species recorded this year include a Blue-winged Teal at Massapequa, a Northern Saw-whet Owl at Short, an Eastern Phoebe at Short, a Yellow-breasted Chat at Baldwin, and a Baltimore Oriole at Five Towns. Two unusual subspecies also merit discussion, one very familiar to this count, the other much less so. Two nominate, Eurasian Green-winged Teal were found, at Tobay and Hempstead. For a form that is rare anywhere in the eastern United States, it is remarkable that it has occurred on five of our last ten counts, and 16 times overall. This year’s tally of two is the first recent multiple occurrence, but it is still well short of our all-time maximum of four, recorded on 26 Dec 1938. The other subspecies was an apparent Gray-bellied Brant, well documented by Michael McBrien in the days leading up to the count, and briefly seen and photographed in Baldwin on count day. Among the more regular species, 16 were recorded in notably large numbers, versus 18 recorded in notably low numbers. The higher counts mainly involved species of three kinds: (1) those showing general increasing trends in recent years (5 Great Horned Owls, 116 Monk Parakeets, 55 Red-bellied Woodpeckers, and 21 Fish Crows—yet another big, black, ascendant scavenger); (2) those associated with saltmarsh habitat, which had not experienced freezing prior to this year’s count (60 Snow Geese, 21 Great Egret, three Yellow-crowned Night-Herons, 54 Greater Yellowlegs, and 319 Red Knots); and (3) thicket birds, presumably well detected by virtue of intensive coverage and favorable weather (four Orange-crowned Warblers, 20 Eastern Towhees, 42 Fox Sparrows, and 315 House Finches). Only two well-recorded species fall outside this classification: 105 Ring-necked Ducks (which are furthermore out of step with the generally downward trend for other freshwater ducks, discussed below) and 360 Common Loons (also out of step with several similar species, discussed below). The lower counts involved many species of freshwater waterfowl: 59 American Wigeon, 72 Northern Pintail, 144 Greater Scaup, two Redhead, one Common Merganser, and 242 Ruddy Ducks—all 10-year minima or nearly so. It is thought that the exceptionally mild and iceless lead up to this year’s count allowed many individuals of these species to linger farther north this year. This explanation might also apply to other low counts this year, such as 14 Horned Grebes, 1 Great Cormorant, 262 Red-breasted Mergansers, 2345 Ring-billed Gulls, and 391 Great Black-backed Gulls (but evidently not to Common Loon). Also at low levels were species showing general downward trends in recent years, such as 32 American Tree Sparrows and 83 American Crows (formerly our only abundant big black scavenger, but now reduced to perhaps 5% or less of its pre-West Nile numbers), and a couple of species that were notably scarce on most regional CBCs this year, such as 2 Golden-crowned Kinglets and 13 Swamp Sparrows. Comparison of these lists of species recorded at higher and lower than usual abundance reveals considerable congruence with the results of the nearby Captree CBC, conducted on 20 December 2015. Detailed summaries of historical frequencies, maxima, and minima for both of these CBCs are presented in related spreadsheets, allowing calibration of these numbers against expectations. These files are appended to our reports to our participants and the permit-granting agencies and are available to anyone on request. We thank all of our participants, the New York State Parks, and the towns of Hempstead and Oyster Bay for contributing to another productive year for this exceptional count, capped once again by a lively compilation dinner at Otto’s Sea Grill. Save the date: next year’s count will be held on Monday 2 January 2017. Shai Mitra & Patricia Lindsay, Bay Shore, NY ________________________________ Support CSI students each time you shop with Amazon Smile<https://smile.amazon.com/ch/13-3683723> -- 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/ --
