Species 61-66: Wrapping Up Vacation Week On LI Sound

Tomorrow is back to work after a great week-long respite. This vacation included time with Kim, great food and wine, a short getaway, time at home, and a lot of new birds for the year. Since last Sunday, I've added 18 new birds to the year's list, starting with a Northern Harrier in Connecticut, and finishing yesterday with a Horned Grebe at the mouth of the Nissequogue River.

There are a few important factors to consider when it comes to finding birds. First and foremost though, you need to go where they are. To see a variety of species, you need to go to a variety of habitats. Ticking off the habitats I saw this week, I counted salt marsh, sandy dunes, freshwater riparian, deciduous forest, estuarine, and finally at Sunken Meadow yesterday, open water on Long Island Sound. It seems that I'm not visiting a lot of the same places twice, but I expect that to change in the coming weeks as the weather begins to warm and migration gets underway. The species I've been seeing will by and large disappear until next fall, and those migrants from lower latitudes will begin to find their way back here to New York. Cardinals and Chickadees were singing in full force yesterday, so spring and the migrants can't be that far around the corner.

Common Loon through my scope

Row #	Species	Count	Location	S/P	Date
61	Fish Crow	4	Sunken Meadow SP Pond	US-NY	20-Feb-10
62	Sanderling	15	Sunken Meadow SP E Beach	US-NY	20-Feb-10
63	Common Loon	3	Sunken Meadow SP E Beach	US-NY	20-Feb-10
64	Long-tailed Duck	2	Sunken Meadow SP E Beach	US-NY	20-Feb-10
65	Northern Flicker	1	Sunken Meadow SP E Beach	US-NY	20-Feb-10
66	Horned Grebe	1	Sunken Meadow SP E Beach	US-NY	20-Feb-10