I watched Lake Ontario again today for a couple of hours, this time from the yard. The best bird was a juvenile/first-winter FRANKLIN'S GULL that flew by heading west (hopefully to the Niagara River!). I also had one distant unidentified JAEGER, 13 HORNED GREBES, 5 RED-NECKED GREBES, 14 GREATER SCAUP, and 11 RED-BREASTED MERGANSERS. My eBird checklist is below.
Good birding! Willie D'Anna Wilson, NY Home, Niagara, US-NY Sep 23, 2014 8:31 AM - 10:46 AM Protocol: Stationary Comments: I watched the lake from Yolanda's. Submitted from BirdLog NA for iOS, version 1.5.1 17 species (+2 other taxa) Canada Goose 69 Green-winged Teal 1 Relatively close. Leading a small group of Red-breasted Mergansers, providing a neat contrast. Greater Scaup 14 Groups of nine and five, flying west. Compact fast-flying ducks with dark head and neck and broad white wing stripe that extended well out onto the primaries. A few females also, which were brown with white at the base of the bill. The group of nine landed on the water for a few minutes - difficult to study due to the choppy water but I still thought the head shape was rounded, more like Greater than Lesser Scaup. Red-breasted Merganser 11 All females or molting males, three or four groups. All were first detected in flight though some landed on the water. Largish with elongated straight profile. Reddish on head and neck, white belly, and white on inner upperwings (secondaries and coverts). Common Merganser ruled out by the more slender appearance of these birds and no sharp contrast between the head and neck. Common Loon 12 Horned Grebe 13 Red-necked Grebe 5 Double-crested Cormorant 28 shorebird sp. 7 Groups of three, two, and two, all flying west. All were frustratingly distant. The last two provided the best view but still distant - they seemed brownish and small, possibly peeps. jaeger sp. 1 A very dark angular bird that briefly chased a Common Tern, whereupon it showed a striking white flash at the base of the underside of the primaries. After this brief chase, it flew low over the water and shortly, I could no longer follow it having lost sight of it in the air distortion. Bonaparte's Gull 2 Franklin's Gull 1 Distant, flying west. A darkish gull but clearly less bulky, shorter-winged, and with quicker less powerful wingbeats than a Herring Gull, which in immature plumage, usually appears browner. My next thought was Ring-billed Gull but the upperparts (wings and back) seemed too dark and relatively uniform and the wingbeats seemed shorter and quicker. The wings and back were grayish brown, not clean as on an adult, blending into blackish near the tips. I cannot say for certain that I detected a dark half-hood but I thought I did on a couple of occasions. I could not see the tail clearly but the rump appeared white. I continued to watch and the bird suddenly did a circle and a short flight upward showing its white rump and tail with only a thin terminal or subterminal tail band. The view of the tail was too brief to say whether or not the band extended to the edges. This, however, definitive ruled out a first cycle Laughing Gull, which would show a thicker tail band. This description may not completely rule out a second cycle Laughing Gull but I think that would look more uniform on the wings and probably would give a different jizz with its longer wings. Ring-billed Gull 42 Herring Gull 35 Common Tern 8 Belted Kingfisher 1 Blue Jay 2 American Crow 1 European Starling 2 View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S19915113 This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org) -- 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/ --
