Patricia Lindsay and I pulled in at Pikes Beach at 9:15 this morning, intending to scan the bar briefly before hitting the Cupsogue flats. Instead, we encountered an excellent variety and fairly heavy volume of migrating swallows, and we shifted into counting mode for the next two hours.
Between 9:15 and 11:15, we counted: 506 Barn Swallow 201 Cliff Swallow 152 Bank Swallow 144 Tree Swallow 3 Northern Rough-winged Swallow These totals don't include any birds passing to the south of the primary dune, although there were surely many doing so under the stiff northerly winds. Curiously, we saw zero Purple Martins migrating, although 9 were present around nearby breeding sites later in the day. The totals for Barn and Bank are not surprising at this date and location (e.g., on 23 Jul 2000 we recorded 2000 of each of these species at Democrat Pt), but this is only the fourth time I've ever recorded rough-wing southbound on the outer beach, and this is by far the most Cliff Swallows I've ever seen on the Long Island beaches (previous southbound beach maxima just 5 at Mecox Bay 30 Jul 2006 & 6 at Watch Hill, Fire Island 29 Aug 1999. We ran into Rich and Lila Fried and Jacob Drucker later at Cupsogue, and they had seen a dozen or so Cliff Swallows from the flats. Shai Mitra Bay Shore ___________________________________ Out of respect for others and the environment, the College of Staten Island is a 100% Tobacco-Free Campus. -- 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/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/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/ --
