I'm forwarding this late posting from a recently arrived graduate student. He reports an impressive number of Black Terns.
Doug Futuyma, Stony Brook ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ben Weinstein <[email protected]> Date: Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 10:58 AM Subject: Late Posting: Gigantic Tern Flock - Smithtown Bay To: [email protected] Hi all- I'm Ben Weinstein, i'm a new graduate student at Stony Brook. Sorry for the late posting (power outages). Right after the storm, I headed out to the west meadow beach north of stony brook. After wading through several feet of water, i made it out to the beach. Although i didn't find the diversity that others found, the quantity was incredible. There was an absolutely enormous flock of terns working the more sheltered side of the bay. I walked a couple miles down the shoreline, with incredible numbers of COMMON TERN (several thousand), and BLACK TERN (300-400). The flock was very concentrated, and feeding continuously between 2 and 3pm. I started at the country-club entrance and walked south. I did my best to keep a running total of black tern, counting birds moving from right to left, and not counting birds returning from my left. A had one "dark backed" tern, but given the distance i can't say anything more about it. Strong flocks of BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS, SANDERLING, and two very confused SOLITARY SANDPIPERS on the beach. Probable BAIRD'S SANDPIPER by the parking lot, but it was disturbed before i could get close. I spent an hour looking for Jaegers within the massive amount of terns, but none appeared. Good Birding, Ben -- Ben Weinstein Graduate Student Ecology and Evolution Stony Brook University -- 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/ --
