I've been intrigued by the various reports of male TUFTED DUCK(S) in the Huntington, Long Island (Suffolk Co.) area this winter. The presumption is that a single bird is involved, moving from one site to another, but one or two people have thought otherwise based on their views of the birds.
As you may recall, the original sightings were from Huntington Harbor and its side arm of Lloyd Neck. After being seen daily on this saltwater inlet into the New Year, the bird disappeared only to be rediscovered (presumably) a few miles away at St Johns Pond in Cold Spring Harbor, right on the Nassau/Suffolk County line. When St Johns pond froze, the bird moved a short distance on the marine inlet of Cold Spring Harbor itself (27 Jan). A few days later a drake Tufted was found some 12 miles away at Blydenburgh County Park in Hauppauge (Suffolk), where it remained for a few days at least (1-4 Feb). However on 11 Feb Cory Finger refound a Tufted Duck on St Johns Pond in Cold Spring Harbor but it seems not to have lingered (at least there have been no posted sightings). This weekend I saw a nice photo of an adult male Tufted from Heckscher Park (Suffolk) taken by Charleen Turner. The flanks appear gleaming white but the tuft is still not quite full enough for a breeding condition male but it's getting there. The bird was seen on the pond there on 19 and 22 Feb and there were similar close sightings there yesterday (24 Feb) by Sarah McGullam and Patricia Aitken. As is often the case on Long Island, the name is a little confusing and this small park is different from Heckscher State Park in East Islip down on the south shore, but is in fact in Huntington, close to the south end of Huntington Harbor where the Tufted Duck (again presumably the same bird) was originally discovered. Todays post from Peter Scully reporting the Tufted at Blydenburgh CP comes as a surprise, given that this is about 10 miles from Heckscher Park. Is the bird moving back and forth or are there in fact two similar-looking birds in this part of Long Island? One question that Peter might be able to answer is whether the Blydenburgh individual stills has any brown smudging on the flanks? It had quite a lot of brown when I saw it there on 2 Feb but this might change rapidly. Simultaneous sightings from more than one location would of course solve this little mystery. -- 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/ --
