Around 6:00 pm this evening, while watching an impressive gathering of shorebirds on the Cupsogue flats, Suffolk Co., I saw something I've thought about for many years but never seen before. Included below is a thread on the westward spring migration of several species of ocean-wintering waterfowl; we observers on the outer beach see this sort of thing quite often. But sharp observers such as Dick Ferren and Tom Burke, one or two geographic layers up in southwestern RI, CT, and Westchester Co., have sometimes seen these birds actually heading north overland, like Brant.
This evening at Cupsogue, I saw a distant flock over the ocean to the east that seemed too high to be cormorants. Putting the scope on them, I saw that most were White-winged Scoters, along with a contingent of dark-winged scoters. Tracking them, they turned north and crossed the barrier beach over the monstrous mansions in Westhampton Beach, at which point the non-White-wings peeled off and returned to the ocean. The 35 or so White-winged Scoters pressed north, then turned to the northwest and rose higher. An amazing thing to see. Here's a phone-scoped shot of the flock passing from se to nw over Moriches Bay: https://flic.kr/p/2exTdzP Tom Burke tells me that Brant were moving heavily up the Hudson River tonight too, as expected on such a fine evening. Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________________ From: Shaibal Mitra Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 2:19 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [nysbirds-l] East Hampton, Main Beach: 16 April Hi Peter and all, It's great to see more data concerning last winter's remarkable southward flight of Razorbills and its aftermath. Regarding the westward spring migration of White-winged Scoters (and also of Red-necked Grebes and Oldsquaws), this is a curious and incompletely understood phenomenon, but it was discerned by the old time gunners during the late 19th Century. See p. 285 here: http://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/auk/v008n03/p0279-p0290.pdf More recently Dick Ferren and others have logged many days of spring seawatches documenting these flights, so this is a good reminder for us to record flight direction. Shai Mitra Bay Shore ________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Peter Max Polshek [[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, April 16, 2013 12:45 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [nysbirds-l] East Hampton, Main Beach: 16 April Sea Watch at Main Beach, East Hampton 7:20 AM - 9:30 AM Highlight: Razorbill 99 Surf Scoter 245 White-winged Scoter 44 (almost all heading west; go figure?) Black Scoter 1074 Surf/Black Scoter 60 Long-tailed Duck 3 Red-breasted Merganser 5 Red-throated Loon 291 Common Loon 15 loon sp. 58 Horned Grebe 1 Northern Gannet 631 Double-crested Cormorant 4 Laughing Gull 3 Ring-billed Gull 4 Herring Gull 8 Great Black-backed Gull 20 Razorbill 99 (largest group=11; several groups=6; all heading east) -- NYSbirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basics<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME> Rules and Information<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES> Subscribe, Configuration and Leave<http://www.northeastbirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> Archives: The Mail Archive<http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html> Surfbirds<http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L> BirdingOnThe.Net<http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html> Please submit your observations to eBird<http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>! -- -- 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/ --
