Chirps and Cheeps

I accompanied Pat Martin to Long Island this past week on her quest for more year birds. I had little hope that I would be able to get any life birds on the trip, but hey, you never know!  As it turned out, I was wrong: I got THREE!  And Pat got quite a few more.

The first life bird was an Arctic Tern (two, actually) that Derek Rogers found on, what will probably go down in the record books as the infamous day where 8 different terns were seen among the hundreds of terns out on the mudflats of Cupsogue State Park. In addition to the Arctic Terns, the others included: 1 Sandwich Tern, a recent life bird for me and now a NYS bird, 1 Roseate, 7 Least, 3 Forest, many Common, 3 Black, and 1 Caspian.  Oddly, the locals were almost more excited about the Caspian Tern than anything else!

The 2nd life bird was gotten on our way off the island, at Jamaica Bay. Barn Owls are known to nest there and finally, on my fifth try, I saw a young Barn Owl preening inside the nest box. Wahoo!

The 3rd life bird, and probably my favorite, was a Kentucky Warbler.  This was found on Bear Mountain and was a very gorgeous singing male. As Pat and I approached the songster, he flew out and landed on the an outer branch of a tree not too far away from us for a very quick, but nice, clear look. I wish I had been fast enough to get a photo - next time, I guess!  There were also several Worm-eating Warblers up on the mountain trail and we did manage a few photos of them - although the conditions were very poor in light rain and dim lighting.