As this relentlessly hot and windless September continues, we've had to improvise in the absence of traditional flights. An interesting discovery for Pat and me this morning was an aggregation of at least 500 Forster's Terns on the floating docks at Gilgo Beach (bayside), along with about 30 Common Terns, and 60 Laughing Gulls, and with a decent shorebird flock nearby.
There were many more Forster's Terns perching on piles to the east and seemingly arriving from the east in small flocks throughout the late morning. On the basis of these, we figured we'd add 50 to our best estimate of the main flock. The latter, as tern flocks will do, frequently panicked and flew out over the bay, with many birds crossing to the ocean and others settling on the water (!) among the Laughing Gulls each time. In any case, Pat and I counted the initial mass by 10s and I got 560 and she got 480. Later, Mike Scheibel offered an estimate of at least 500 and related that Bob Grover had seen the flock earlier in the morning and assessed it at 500. Given the overall congruence of these estimates, I think it's reasonable to posit 500 plus 50 Forster's Terns for Gilgo today, which I think might be a new max for Suffolk County. There has been a trend toward such numbers in very recent years (e.g., http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S15343578), so it is not a great surprise. But it was an exciting, dynamic scene to behold. Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________ CSI Tops MONEY magazine’s Best Colleges list for 2015-2016><http://csitoday.com/2015/07/csi-tops-money-magazines-best-colleges-list-for-2015-2016/> -- 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/ --
