Sue and I had a good day of birding on the east end today, starting at Shinnecock Inlet and working our way east to Lake Montauk. While driving east on Dune Road we finally connected with the elusive American Bittern, observing the bird as it flew across the road west of Tiana Beach. We searched at Tiana for the previously reported redpolls with no luck. At Shinnecock Inlet, a clam kill west of the Inlet provided a good number of gulls. However, the best we could do was a first winter Iceland Gull. The Adult King Eider was still present off the back of the inlet with Common Eider. Before heading east we decided to take a last look at Tiana. As we headed west of the Ponquogue Bridge a flock of some fifty Common Redpoll flew up on the north side of Dune Road and settled back down to feed on the seed heads of Seaside Goldenrod. After watching the redpolls for a few minutes we headed east for Hook Pond. At Hook the water was partially open and there were good numbers of Canada Geese. Among the Canada's were four Greater White-fronted Geese. We checked all the swans and they were Mutes, with the exception of two sleeping swans on the edge of the ice. We had to wait a while before they roused from their slumbers but they were our sought after Tundra Swans. Duck numbers were poor at Hook with only two male Common Mergansers present. While at Hook we got the word (Thank you Mike Scheibel!) through the listserve that the Thick-billed Murre was still being seen - we decided to extend our trip. We arrived at the fishing dock just east of the Coast Guard Station. After a short period of scanning south I found a candidate that quickly disappeared around a piling. Eventually the Thick-billed Murre was seen again from the dock and good scope views were obtained, although the bird never came close to us. We had missed the Sands Point Barrow's Goldeneye, so we wanted to check the south end of Lake Montauk to see if the pair that has been there the last few years had returned. After going through the Common Goldeneye we found the pair of Barrow's Goldeneye in the s/e corner of the Lake, as viewed from South Lake Drive.
Other birds of note on the trip included Iceland Gull just west of the lake Montauk jetty, a Snowy Owl at Hick's Island at Napeague, and seventeen Snow Geese at Short's Pond. Poor photos of the redpolls and murre are on my flickr site. Ken & Sue Feustel http://www.flickr.com/photos/kfeustel/ -- 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/ --
