Yesterday morning, Shai Mitra, Shane Blodgett, and I watched birds from the platform on Battery Harris at Fort Tilden for several hours.
Since it is still early in the season for huge numbers of things like blackbirds, robins etc., we traded the large numbers that are characteristic of this site later in the season for good diversity, a couple of rarities, and strong flights of some of the lower density coastal migrants. Several species were represented by very substantial numbers for the first time this season, including Canada Geese, Brant, Song, Swamp, and White-throated Sparrows, Golden-crowned Kinglets, and Eastern Phoebes. The latter few species had been present in small quantities in the area recently, but the numbers really exploded yesterday. Low density late-fall migrants put on a good showing, with at least *55* *Rusty Blackbirds*, and *63 Purple Finches* heading westbound. This is a good proportion of Rusties, given that we only tallied 325 Red-winged Blackbirds (~15% of our Blackbirds were Rusty). In among the migrating skeins of Canada Geese were a couple of fun oddities: *1 GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE*, in a flock of ~24 Canada Geese at 7:55 AM, and a *"Richardson's" CACKLING GOOSE* with a flock of 13 Canada Geese at 10:39 AM. The flock with the White-fronted Goose ended up cutting north after going over the platform and we lost it somewhere over Rockaway Inlet as it headed towards Coney Island or Staten Island. The flock containing the Cackling Goose kept motoring west along the north shore of the barrier beach until we stopped tracking it when it was well over Breezy Point. While we were tracking the Cackling Goose coming in from the east, Shane spotted what turned out to be a *BLACK TERN* flying perpendicular to the goose flock in the same field of view. This bird was undoubtedly the most bizarre and unexpected bird of the day for us, and it actually continued north over Rockaway Inlet/Jamaica Bay, adjacent to the Gil Hodges Bridge and Floyd Bennett Field. Other miscellany was an Eastern Meadowlark flying north having possibly just come in off the water, a spizella sparrow flying by that could well have been a Clay-colored, a somewhat late Blackburnian Warbler, a chattering Winter Wren, 2 Chimney Swifts, 2 *Pectoral Sandpipers*, and one *American Golden-Plover*. As for diurnal raptors, *2 *juvenile *Broad-winged Hawks, *and *4 Bald Eagles* were the species highlights, and there was a moderate but decent for this day in age flight of Sharp-shinned Hawks and American Kestrels, and at least 17 Merlins, several of which were adult males. Noticeably not detected from Fort Tilden were any Nuthatches. The eBird checklist from Battery Harris can be found here: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S31983462 Other stops after we finished the stationary count atop the platform turned up a couple of nice birds as well: 1 *Nelson's Sparrow (subvirgatus)* at the SW corner of the Riis Park golf course 2 *Lincoln's Sparrows*, 3 White-breasted Nuthatches (not a breeder at that site, so undoubtedly migrants/dispersers), and 3 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers at the Floyd Bennett Field community garden. Also, several White-crowned Sparrows scattered around Fort Tilden, Riis Park, and the community garden. Good Birding -Doug Gochfeld. Brooklyn, NY. -- 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/ --
