The Block Island Veterans Day Count was conducted for the 23rd consecutive year on Monday, 12 Nov 2018, a truly beautiful day to be out in the field.
Thirteen participants divided into as many as eight parties and covered this island, which lies just east of Long Island, NY, in CBC style. The idea behind this count, as well as its late-winter counterpart around Presidents Day, has been to gauge changes in winter bird populations across the whole winter season, as well as to detect longitudinal trends in these dynamics over time. One thing we didn't anticipate when we began these bracketing counts in 1996 was the dramatic trend toward warmer late falls, and the associated lengthening of the southbound migrations of many medium-distance migrant species, which has resulted in a higher likelihood and volume of nocturnal migration around the date of our VDC than we intended. Although this has hampered our first objective to some extent (because we had intended for the bulk of stereotyped migration to have been completed for most such species as of our first reckoning), it has been a gratifying and fascinating example of the second kind of result, as we have directly observed the increased frequency of mid-November occurrence of various species, even Neotropical migrants that not so long ago were unexpected after early October. This year's count yielded lots of late dates and high counts of species that will be absent soon: our first ever Green Heron, Pectoral Sandpiper, 8 American Woodcocks, 50 Ring-billed Gulls (this species will be nearly absent on the island by mid-December), Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (despite its abundance there as a fall migrant, Block Island has traditionally been one of the hardest places in the state to find this species after October), Eastern Phoebe, 6 Brown Creepers (status similar to YBSA--a really tough bird on the CBC and formerly even on the VDC), 47 Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Magnolia Warbler (another VDC first), Cape May Warbler, 2 Pine Warblers, 3 Palm Warblers, 4 Blackpoll Warblers, Common Yellowthroat, Yellow-breasted Chat, and Indigo Bunting. We chose Block Island for these counts in part because of its depauperate resident and breeding bird faunas, which make it easier to detect irruptions of species that are always common on the mainland. This year's count produced spectacularly in this regard: new all-time maxima were recorded for Red-bellied Woodpecker (27), White-breasted Nuthatch, and Black-capped Chickadee (232). Several other species whose irruptions tend to be associated with those of these species were also found in larger than average numbers this year: 38 Downy Woodpeckers (avg = 15), 6 Hairy Woodpeckers (avg = 1), 56 Blue Jays (just shy of the VDC max of 58), 24 Red-breasted Nuthatch (avg = 16, with counts close to zero about every second year), and 22 Purple Finches (avg = 7). In addition, we detected several other irruptive species that normally don't breed near the adjacent mainland: Common Redpoll, 186 Pine Siskin (a new max), and Evening Grosbeak. The last was another VDC first, and for me personally a new species for the island, which I managed to see just in time by sprinting around the southeast corner of the island on Patricia's call (this after hiking something like 10 miles!): https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S49921333 Rarities were very few, which was surprising considering the spate of vagrants in surrounding areas over the past couple of weeks. These included Cave Swallow, Northern Goshawk (another irruptive species associated with many of those named above), and Northern Shoveler (really rare on BI!). Finally, a couple of Block Island specialties were found: Barn Owl and Black Guillemot. Of interest to me were relatively low numbers of several common winter residents: 174 American Robins, 95 Myrtle Warblers, 102 White-throated Sparrows, and 59 Juncos. For these species, at least, we didn't get caught on the wrong side of a big late flight. Depending on the weather between now and the CBC, hard-weather dispersal from the mainland might augment these numbers by late December. Shai Mitra Bay Shore, NY -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm 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://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
