Hi Everyone,
No doubt many NYSBIRDS_L subscribers are watching the approaching weather system with trepidation and excitement. Below I've cross posted from the Virginia list some thoughts on the subject from Ned Brinkley, a leading student of the effects of hurricanes on bird populations, especially seabirds. I echo his call for caution, in terms of personal safety, respect for emergency services and responsible birding. There is a tendency for people to over think the likelihood for exotics, forgetting that the storm will also disrupt the lives of the more familiar species. These are of course significantly more common and one must remember that not every bird being tossed around in the winds is a Sooty Tern or a Pterodroma. Laughing Gulls, Common Terns and so on are still present in abundance and will take a pummeling. Under extreme conditions these familiar birds often look and behave differently compared to more normal conditions. Young Laughing Gulls become jaegers and jaegers become Pterodroma.....So be careful and rule out the commoner possibilities before leaping to the more exotic. That said, there is always the prospect of finding a really exciting bird mixed in with the common ones and careful scrutiny of every single individual can pay off. As Ned explains, checking a wide variety of habitats can be worthwhile. During migration, large numbers of shorebirds, gulls, terns and jaegers pass right over our heads at high altitude en route from the arctic to the open ocean and beyond. These are invisible to birders but are affected by very large weather systems which may bring them to ground for short periods. Even after the storm has passed it is worth looking for unusual species that are making their back to the pelagic realm or are restarting their migration. Recall the Magnificent Frigatebird ( http://nybirds.org/NYSARC/Reports/NYSARC2008.html) discovered soaring in perfect blue windless skies over Mecox Bay following the passage of Hurricane Hannah across Long Island in the first week of September 2008. If you do discover something rare or unusual, please make every effort to get the word out to others as soon as possible (this listserve is an ideal forum) and please consider submitting written details and/or photographs to your Kingbird Regional Editor, the local RBA and to the New York State Avian Records Committee (NYSARC). Don't just post to eBird and leave it at that because the full details of the sighting (description, images etc) are not accessible to others outside the system and are not archived. Here's the posting. ******************** Subject: Hurricane Irene From: Ned Brinkley <23cahow AT gmail.com> Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 10:22:04 -0400 Hi all, With a hurricane approaching, there has been much internet discussion of bird displacement and safety issues. I thought I'd put in my usual two cents, based on past experiences with storms that made landfall in, or near, Virginia. The coming storm is forecast to do a great deal of damage to eastern North Carolina, and it's very likely that southeastern Virginia will experience high winds and widespread flooding over the weekend. Safety is the highest priority in birding after the passage of hurricanes, and no one should venture out until authorities declare it is safe to do so. Fallen power lines, flooded roads, falling trees are all hazards, and tornadoes can still pop up after the storm's center has passed. That said, we stand to learn a great deal about the effects of such storms on birds and their populations by being recording the birds after such events. Here are some possibilities for birding strategies after a storm's passage (and after an area is safe): 1) Inland lakes and reservoirs, especially large ones, harbor seabirds and shorebirds displaced by storms; Virginia has records of frigatebirds, all three jaegers, three gadfly petrels, four shearwaters, two storm-petrels, two tropical terns, almost all other terns, Sabine's Gull, and two-dozen shorebird species from such settings. And that is only from a handful of recorded hurricanes, notably Fran of 1996 and Isabel of 2003. Irene's forecast track is to the east of these storms', but many things can happen between now and Saturday. Even if the storm does pass off the coast of Virginia as forecast now, such spots are still worth checking. 2) River mouths and peninsulas near them can be very productive for seawatching; there are many interesting records of seabirds seen from such locations, including White-faced Storm-Petrel in Virginia. 3) Dredge-spoil areas such as Craney Island can be the site of "storm" roosts, large assemblages of terns, shorebirds, gulls, and skimmers, with all birds resting quietly, bills pointing into the wind. Bridled and Sooty Terns frequently sit with them. 4) Farm fields, especially harvested ones (harvested potato fields are optimal), can also be the site of storm roosts, but when wet or flooded, shorebirds are also found in numbers feeding in the muddy areas (or drier areas in the case of golden-plovers, Buff-breasted Sandpipers, Baird's Sandpipers, etc.). Even areas that have relatively little rain and wind can sometimes produce a surprise or two. 5) Open beaches. Although storms that pass east of our coastlines do not tend to produce large numbers of sightings of seabirds, they sometimes do produce large numbers of seabirds on beaches, some of them in weakened condition, some of them dead. Photographs of such birds are very valuable. All such specimens have even more value to science, so they should be salvaged and preserved (donated to museums). Walking miles of beaches can produce dozens of interesting birds. We still know very little about which taxa of Cory's Shearwater and Band-rumped Storm-Petrel visit our waters, for instance, so every specimen can provide another piece of the puzzle. Yesterday, I photographed an adult Masked Booby off northeastern North Carolina, just a few miles from Virginia waters. Our state has no report of this species, but it seems likely that Irene could displace such a bird a few miles northward. Brown Boobies have been noted in recent weeks from Cape May, NJ, to Maine, so that is another bird to look for after the storm. 6) Almost anywhere. Records of odd things like Cave Swallows have popped up in odd places after recent hurricane landfalls, so looking at every bird carefully, no matter where you are, seems prudent. In theory, birds migrating at this time of year could be not just displaced by the storm but also "put down" by the storm, that is, stop migration and seek shelter in the nearest area. Because landfall of the storm may occur in darkness, "grounded" migrants of many sorts should be looked for across a large area of the American East from Sunday through Tuesday. The Virginia Avian Records Committee would be very grateful to receive reports of any storm-blown seabirds. Ideally, reports of these birds should be accompanied by photographs of the birds, for verification. Because birding after a storm can be challenging, and because many seabirds are difficult to identify even by very experienced seabirders, there is no shame in recording a bird as "phalarope sp.,", "jaeger sp.", "storm-petrel sp.", or even "large tubenose" or "shorebird sp.". It can be tempting to put a name on a bird seen poorly, but it's best to be conservative. Let's hope that we avoid extensive damage in Virginia, of course, and that the storm douses the terrible Dismal Swamp fire (smoke is terrible this morning) and moves on out to sea. Ned Brinkley Cape Charles, Va. -- 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 http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/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/ --
