Cold Day at Breezy Point

Yesterday Steve Nanz led a Brooklyn Bird Trip to the coast; that is, the end of Flatbush Ave. (People sometimes forget New York is a coastal city). We started about 8:15 A.M. at Breezy Point, where I was hoping for Purple Sandpiper. So was a birder from Iowa we happened to run into out there. The Jetty at Breezy is one of the best places in New York City to find them.

We took the usual 4.5 km route around the point (down the Fisherman’s Road and back up around the Bay side) through some rather heavy winds.

Notable species included 9 Surf Scoters (including two unusually close ones) and 2-3 Northern Gannets. Other more common species included

• Sanderling (~58)
• Great Cormorant (9)
• Brant (10)
• Ring-billed Gull (5)
• Northern Mockingbird (1)
• Yellow-rumped Warbler (1-3)
• Great Black-backed Gull (~19)
• Herring Gull (~99)
• Red-breasted Merganser (3)
• Common Loon (2)
• Long-tailed Duck (4)
• Rock Pigeon (5)
• European Starling (6)
• Red-throated Loon (1)

However you’ll note what’s not on the list is Purple Sandpiper. This remains my nemesis bird. I also note that as of this morning no one in New York State has reported a Purple sandpiper on the Great Backyard Bird Count.

After we finished the loop at Breezy we headed over to F0rt Tilden for a little land birding and a hoped for Northern Sawwhet Owl. We didn’t find one, though we did find some owl pellets and:

• Common Loon
• Brant
• Long-tailed Duck
• Red-breasted Merganser
• Peregrine Falcon (percehd on the Marine Parkway Bridge)
• Ring-billed Gull
• Herring Gull
• Great Black-backed Gull
• Rock Pigeon
• Mourning Dove
• American Crow
• Black-capped Chickadee

After lunch, I suggested we check out the bathhouse at Jacob Riis Park to see if the Harlequin Ducks might still be hanging around. This is the third time I’ve gone over there specifically to look for these, and the third time they weren’t anywhere to be seen. However we did see:

• Common Loon
• Brant
• Black Scoter (11)
• Long-tailed Duck
• Red-breasted Merganser
• Sanderling
• Ring-billed Gull
• Herring Gull
• Great Black-backed Gull
• Rock Pigeon
• American Crow

For the final stop of the day, we crossed back over to Brooklyn and Floyd Bennett Field, which has the best grassland habitat in New York City. It did not disappoint. We drove slowly along the runways and eventually reached the cricket field where we found 30! Horned Larks and a Song Sparrow. We then drove over to the end of the Archery Road to search for some Eurasian Wigeons, but along the way; MaryJo Eyster spotted our first two Killdeer in front of one of the active buildings on Floyd Bennett Drive. We also spotted Lucky, the local one-footed Herring Gull.

At the end of the archery road, we pulled out the scopes; but we hardly needed them since 2! Eurasian Wigeons flushed almost immediately along with about 29 American Wigeons. Also present were two American Black Ducks, 5 Great Cormorants, the usual three gull species, and, a little further out, some Buffleheads and Horned Grebes.

At this point we were all quite cold and quite tired, so we headed back up Flatbush Ave. to home. Total species count for the day was 32. Total bird count for the GBBC was 954.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 19th, 2006 at 9:44 AM and is filed under Birding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the Atom feed. You can make a comment, Digg this story, or trackback from your own site.