New York City Rare Bird Alert

Below is the New York City Rare Bird Alert for the week ending Friday, June 3, 2015:

-RBA
* New York
* New York City, Long Island, Westchester County
* July 3, 2015
* NYNY1507.03

- Birds Mentioned

WHITE-FACED IBIS+
ARCTIC TERN+
(+ Details requested by NYSARC)

Cory’s Shearwater
Great Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
Manx Shearwater
Wilson’s Storm-Petrel
Northern Gannet
Glossy Ibis
Common Tern
Royal Tern
Parasitic Jaeger
Purple Martin
Bank Swallow
Cliff Swallow
YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER
SUMMER TANAGER
BLUE GROSBEAK
European Goldfinch

If followed by (+) please submit documentation of your report electronically and use the NYSARC online submission form found at http://www.nybirds.org/NYSARC/goodreport.htm

You can also send reports and digital image files via email to nysarc44nybirdsorg

If electronic submission is not possible, hardcopy reports and photos or sketches are welcome. Hardcopy documentation should be mailed to:

Gary Chapin - Secretary
NYS Avian Records Committee (NYSARC)
125 Pine Springs Drive
Ticonderoga, NY 12883

Hotline: New York City Area Rare Bird Alert
Number: (212) 979-3070

Compiler: Tom Burke, Tony Lauro
Coverage: New York City, Long Island, Westchester County

Transcriber: Gail Benson

[~BEGIN RBA TAPE~]

Greetings! This is the New York Rare Bird Alert for Friday, July 3 at 7:00 pm.

The highlights of today’s tape are WHITE-FACED IBIS, ARCTIC TERN, seabird flights, BLUE GROSBEAK, SUMMER TANAGER, and YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER.

The adult WHITE-FACED IBIS continues to frequent the marsh on the north side of Captree Island, noted there as recently as Wednesday. Though not always visible (or even present), the Ibis can generally be seen with patience among the gathering of GLOSSY IBIS there. Please remember that Captree Island is a private community, so park off the road before the community entrance and note the No Parking signs, especially at the viewing site.

The best place to see ARCTIC TERN on Long Island continues to be Cupsogue County Park in Westhampton Dunes, though they’ve been sporadic this year, this week’s only report involving a first year bird on the flats Sunday morning. A sea watch there that morning also recorded 9 GREAT and 7 CORY’S SHEARWATERS.

Sea watching recently has been providing various pelagic species, with the most productive site based on reported observations being off Robert Moses State Park Field 2. Counted there last Saturday were 1 MANX, 2 GREAT and 12 CORY’S SHEARWATERS and 17 WILSON’S STORM-PETRELS, while Sunday morning there, on what are generally less productive northeast winds, netted a few each of GREAT and CORY’S SHEARWATERS and WILSON’S STORM-PETRELS. However, fortuitously, on Sunday the winds shifted around to the south by late afternoon and a continuous stream of sea birds developed off Moses – a 3 & ½ hour watch up to dusk recorded 129 CORY’S, 6 GREAT, 3 SOOTY, and 5 MANX SHEARWATERS plus at least 45 unidentified CORY’S/GREAT- type SHEARWATERS observed, 37 WILSON’S STORM-PETRELS, 8 NORTHERN GANNETS, and 2 PARASITIC JAEGERS at one point ganging up on a COMMON TERN. A Tuesday afternoon watch there also produced decent numbers of CORY’S and GREAT and 5 MANX SHEARWATERS.

Seabird watching along Long Island’s south shore tends to be better the further east you go. Nonetheless, it can be rewarding even further west, with single GREAT and SOOTY SHEARWATERS and 5 WILSON’S STORM-PETRELS appearing Sunday afternoon off Fort Tilden.

Two ROYAL TERNS visited Plumb Beach in Brooklyn last Saturday, with perhaps the same two on the bar off the Coast Guard Station at Jones Beach West End on Sunday; another was at Cupsogue Tuesday.

Among the breeding landbirds, a pair of BLUE GROSBEAKS was found nesting on the private Brookhaven National Lab property Wednesday, and 1 or 2 have also been noted lately at the productive grasslands at the former Grumman Airport in Calverton, this a traditional site for this species.

The male SUMMER TANAGER was still singing at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay Wednesday, while at Connetquot River State Park 3 separate singing male YELLOW-THROATED WARBLERS were distinguished last Sunday, hopefully indicative of a successful colony forming there.

Very unexpected were 3 or 4 EUROPEAN GOLDFINCH found Thursday at Bush Terminal Piers Park in Brooklyn, a colorful through presumably uncountable addition to the City’s current avifauna.

Now is a decent time to look for floaters in the City parks, these usually local non-breeders or unsuccessful regional nesters, but sometimes a more distant surprise appears, like the Williamson’s Sapsucker in late June 1996 at Robert Moses State Park. Regular early migrants, including several species of shorebirds and such passerines as BANK and CLIFF SWALLOWS and PURPLE MARTINS are also now moving locally. Unfortunately the East Pond at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge is not yet ready to receive the shorebirds—soon hopefully.

To phone in reports, on Long Island call Tony Lauro at (631) 734-4126, or weekdays call Tom Burke at (212) 372-1483.

This service is sponsored by the Linnaean Society of New York and the National Audubon Society. Thank you for calling.

- End transcript