As the late fall vagrant season unfolds once again, rarity hunters are excitedly debating precisely where and when to look for them. My own contribution in this department was a very modest 40-minute walk yesterday afternoon in Gardiner County Park, Bay Shore, Suffolk County.
The most unusual bird I found was a White-eyed Vireo, which I thought was interesting to find at this site, at this date. Gardiner CP is a known breeding station for this declining and local breeder on LI, so the present record bears on the question of whether the unusual date records of common species in Nov-Dec are analogous to the co-occurring records of extralimital species (i.e., originating recently from distant sites), or whether they represent local individuals lingering from earlier in the year. Many November records of WEVI on LI are known to occur via long-distance dispersal, like vagrants, because they often occur in clusters at outer coastal vagrant traps, in association with other unusual species, all of which have been demonstrably absent in prior weeks (e.g., https://ebird.org/checklist/S40357090; https://ebird.org/checklist/S40348840; https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg22781.html) A record like the present one could be interpreted either way, and if a "vagrant," would be especially interesting as implying a specific preference for this site by WEVI. Shai Mitra Bay Shore -- 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/ --
