Thursday, 29 July 2010 - Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge and the western
Rockaway peninsula,
Queens County, N.Y.C.
Quite a good bird migration is in progress this Thursday night with a
lot of movement throughout NY state and adjacent states and provinces...
In my wanderings, the biggest surprise by far was a bright PINE SISKIN
at the south edge of Marine Park golf course, actually outside the
golf course at the edge of the patch of pines and other small trees
near the driving range & a police highway patrol building, along
Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn - a bright, breeding-plumaged Pine Siskin,
about as unexpected a species as I might imagine in that spot at this
time of year... wonder what the story with THAT bird is? I didn't put
in too much time looking in at the trees there as this was near the
end of my birding day. I also had checked at Floyd Bennett Field in
Brooklyn, with a few rain puddles drying up now, and the "Return-a-
Gift" pond there also rather dry though not completely so. I saw a few
Killdeer and a couple of Least Sandpipers there and little else. One
pond blind is OK & the other is nearly useless. There were 12 basic-
plumaged Bobolinks "pinking" (calling) along the western runway edge
as I went along there, at Floyd Bennett Field. There were also a
number of local breeders and such, with the possibility that some
migrants are joining up with their kinds... a number of Willow
Flycatchers, etc. A single male Purple Martin joined a lot of Swallow
activity including many Tree & Barn & lesser no's. of Bank & N. Rough-
winged.
I birded the East & West Ponds at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge today,
centered around the peak mid-day tide cycle. I later visited the
Rockaway peninsula of western Long Island, mostly the portion at the
far western end of the barrier beach island known as Breezy Point, a
part of which is on federally-managed land as is the Refuge in the
bay. Incidentally, the Jamaica Bay Refuge (as it's called) is NOT a
National Wildlife Refuge, and never was - before becoming a unit of
the NYC & northern N.J. Gateway National Recreation Area, the Refuge
was city-owned and managed and was in a somewhat different status. The
refuge as it is now is not managed in exactly the same ways that a
national wildlife refuge would be. There are many sides to this and
this may not be the forum to get into all that. I just wanted to
correct the impression that some visitors and others have when they
read that this is a wildlife refuge. It is that, just a bit
differently-managed from the many state & federal wildlife refuges in
the country. It has been (and hopefully long will continue to be)
among the best places in the world to observe migrant shorebirds (aka
waders as called in much of the rest of the English-speaking world),
and a wide variety of other birds and wildlife.
As noted by Joe G., CALF-HIGH or KNEE-HIGH BOOTS will be required by
most birders who don't like sticky gook all over their footwear, for
the East Pond, especially the northern ends. I wear a knee-high rubber
waterproof brand and I am 5'10", and I got into an area at the north
end where water went all inside my tall boots - it's over 18" deep in
some shoreside spots! That said, with care it's also traversable by
most birders... just use care especially if venturing along the east
edges or anywhere the bottom is not easily visible. The water is
dropping at the East Pond and (barring a big deluge of rain) the
situation should continue to improve daily.
I can add just one shorebird species to the list provided by Joe G.
earlier today for the East Pond at Jamaica Bay, a couple of Pectoral
Sandpipers - at least 2 on the East Pond during the early afternoon
and also one at the West Pond in the mid-day. The overall numbers of
shorebirds were excellent again with Semipalmated Sandpipers leading
the charge, well over 4,000 being present in the refuge including a
fair number at the W. Pond... and also a very high number (of them and
a few other species) seen moving out around the 3 p.m. hour, headed SW
& S., to points unknown but visibly leaving the refuge from the west
pond trail vantage point, and flying out over the bay far past the
bay's visible islands west or south of the Refuge. Since I was later
at Breezy Point & a few other parts of the Rockaway peninsula, it was
clear that a lot of Semipalmated Sandpipers also had come in there
along the shores. They almost dominated the beach and bay out there,
rivaling Sanderlings in numbers, which also were present in the
thousands (more than 2,000 along the 4+ miles of shores I looked at
later on). So for my Refuge visit, I tallied 14 shorebird species
there alone.
A Hudsonian Godwit (faded adult) was continuing to feed near the point
that's developing (with a very slight receding of water levels) down
the west side of the East Pond from the NW corner entry trail. There
were 2 Wilson's Phalaropes present, one at the NW corner of the East
Pond which appears to be a male (by size & plumage) and is in any case
in a very drab basic (non-breeding) plumage, and the second also in
basic plumage but not as small or quite as drab, was north of the
Raunt area on the east side of the East Pond by about 1/8 mile. A lot
of shorebirds were using many sections of the east pond and also were
flying around a lot in the post-peak tide cycle in mid-afternoon...
At Jamaica Bay Refuge there also were signs of fresh waterfowl
movement, with some Wood Ducks on the West Pond as well as a fairly
big bunch of Northern Shovelers, and also some American Wigeon, to go
with the many Gadwall, American Black Duck, Mallards, and modest
numbers of Green-winged & also Blue-winged Teal... there were also
various ducks on the East Pond, and I have to admit I gave them short
shrift in preference of viewing the shorebird spectacle. I even almost
forgot to look for the American White Pelican which was present on the
E. Pond north of the Raunt area, at the time I saw it, after 3 p.m.
This was the "second" pelican and has a more pronounced bill
coloration as well as no problems visible in either eye. The typical
heron and egret species were all present in good numbers as were
Glossy Ibis. A Gull-billed Tern gave a great show at the south end of
the East Pond around 1:30 p.m. or so, and the other terns rather
easily seen at the Refuge include numbers of Forster's, a smaller
number of Least, and a few Common Terns that came in to the East Pond
(more of those and the Least Terns may often be found out at the West
Pond trail's bay side or sometimes far out in the bay, especially the
west side. Boat-tailed Grackles were around the W. Pond trail as well
as a variety of the other breeding land birds of the Refuge. A quick
visit to the gardens areas, which were relatively quiet at the hour I
went there. The Big John's Pond is, as was mentioned by others on this
list, mainly dried up just now and was not too active, yet it is still
worth a look anytime and could still produce a "surprise".
A couple of Northern Waterthrushes were around the East Pond edges,
and another was at the miniscule fresh-water pond at Fort Tilden,
somewhat near the hawk-watch platform. (In Central Park, Manhattan
recently there have been a couple of migrant warblers including a few
Northern Waterthrushes, multiple Yellow Warblers, Black-and-white
Warbler, & American Redstart. It's likely at least a few more migrant
species will be seen in the next few days there - & all around the
region.) Sometimes the "blind" pond is a good spot to check at Jam. Bay.
At Breezy Point, besides the thousands of Semipalmated Sandpipers and
Sanderlings, were 15 Piping Plovers I counted (seeing none that
appeared banded), and 200+ Semipalmated Plovers, 2 dozen American
Oystercatchers, a few Black-bellied Plovers, & 4 Ruddy Turnstones on
the bay side. Also at the bay side were a few Short-billed
Dowitchers. Incidentally, at the Refuge earlier, I'd tried for any
possible Long-billed-looking Dowitchers and was unable to come up with
one, but did note a small number of "hendersoni" ("Prairie") Short-
billed in with the many hundreds of the remaining Short-billed. It
looked to me as though dowitchers had moved out to a small extent.
There were some juveniles around, too but not all that many. It will
be very interesting to see what the current cold fronts bring in and
cause to depart, with birds likely moving in very good numbers
overnight - and a little bit of a "fall" feeling by the early a.m.
these next couple of mornings...
- - -
btw, you who are a big chicken with the J. Bay log, say it in person
if you need to express something... and otherwise don't vandalize the
refuge property. It just might be a federal crime! The Jamaica Bay
mud-monster will get you, too....
- - -
Good birding,
Tom Fiore,
Manhattan
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