Hugh McGuinness and I spent a couple of hours seawatching from the restaurant overlook at Montauk Point. Today's heavy rain held off long enough for us get good views of the many seabirds and seaduck feeding off the Point. Several hundred *RAZORBILL* continue, many quite close to shore. Associated with the Razorbills were 20 or more *BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKES*, the majority adults. Highlights of our session were one, possibly two, flyby *BLACK GUILLEMOTS*, and a flyby *RED-NECKED GREBE*.
Later we found another *RED-NECKED GREBE* in Fort Pond Bay, six *REDHEAD*(scarce out here) on Fort Pond and a 2nd-winter *ICELAND GULL* at Montauk Inlet. Razorbills were evident at almost every stop we made along the north shore of the peninsula, including one in the channel at Montauk Inlet and several around the mouth of Hog Creek in Springs. It'll be fun to see how many Razorbills we can tally during the Montauk and Sagaponack CBCs next weekend. The wintering *LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULLS* (Larry and Freddy) continue at Lazy Point and Fort Pond Bay, respectively. Two *(RICHARDSON'S) CACKLING GEESE* were in with Canada Geese on Further Lane in Amagansett. On Saturday (11 Dec), John Shemilt and I visited some offshore fishing spots S to SSE of Shinnecock Inlet. Things were pretty quiet on the way out but eventually we hit the 'motherload' in terms of *DOVEKIE* with increasing numbers as the sea flattened. Our total for a broad 'U' shaped circuit came to very respectable 2,129, with the last few being sighted only 13 miles from shore. Mixed among the Dovekie were 35 *ATLANTIC PUFFIN*, again a nice total. More unexpected perhaps were 8 *RED PHALAROPE* (encountered in ones or two). Like the Dovekie they were busy feeding on plankton and allowed close approach. We saw at least four other phalarope in flight, almost certainly Reds and my sense was that like the puffins, the phalarope were widely scattered among the Dovekie horde. Gulls were quite scarce and we only managed one juvenile *BLACK-LEGGED KITTIWAKE* and a mere handful of Bonaparte's Gulls. Likewise, we could only find one *RAZORBILL* on the entire trip and it was 17 miles offshore! Evidently they are content to feed in Block Island Sound but this may change as the season wears on. Hopefully the Dovekie and puffins will remain in shelf waters well into the New Year, giving us a decent crack at both sought after species during the two 'Paulagic' offshore trips scheduled to go out of Freeport (Nassau Co.) in the coming months. The NYC Audubon sponsored trip is slated for 23 Jan and the NYSOA sponsored trip will be on 13 Feb. Both are filling fast, so reserve your place soon. -- Angus Wilson New York City & The Springs, NY, USA http://birdingtotheend.blogspot.com/ -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
