At mid-morning on Friday, my tour of babysitting in Rockville Centre was done, allowing me to head home to Riverhead, by way of Jones Beach, Robert Moses and Captree State Parks...which, even with the rain, was most satisfying.Starting with a Peregrine and a Merlin before even reaching the official "West End", my first stop was at the Coast Guard Station, where I met Dave Klauber, who pointed out the lingering C.Eider, that has been hanging around for about a month. I then picked up another 3 Merlins en-route to Parking Field 2, where I found Bobby Rosetti looking at 2 Lesser Black-backed Gulls, which just happened to be my first of the season ! One bird appeared to be close to an adult, missing only the full amount of white spots in the primaries. Dave, arriving a little later, thought the other bird was a 3rd winter bird.
Heading east, an adult Peregrine was observed "chilling out" on the J.B. water tower. Stopping at the Gilgo Marina, where the water level of the bay was close to coming over the dock, it also had advanced to the fronts of all the houses on the fairly new paved road running to the east. Hoping to find some early, migrating sparrows here, as in years past, the only bird found was a Greater Yellowlegs busily feeding in water between 2 houses. Arriving at Parking Field 5 at R.M.S.P., I came upon a number of Lessers, of different vintages. Now to answer the question I posed above...I do, when it comes to LBBG"s ! Unfortunately, I was driving my wife's car, and although I had transferred binoculars, camera & scope, I had forgotten my bag of books ! So, as I started to "bite the bullet", who pulls up in back of me, but a guy who doesn't need a field guide...Shai Mitra - how cool was that ! As he started to age the birds in question, I greatly appreciated my serendipitous good fortune in seeing juvenile, 2nd, 3rd and possibly 4th calendar year birds...my cup overflowed ! Cheers, Bob -- 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/ --
