Christmas Bird Count

It has been nearly two months since the New York State 2025-2026 Christmas Bird Count wrapped up. It's taken me a while, but I've finally gotten around to posting a brief summary of my experience leading the team again at Floyd Bennett Field.

Every year during the Christmas Bird Count, our sunrise strategy at Floyd Bennett Field is to walk all the grasslands. It is a huge area and I like to get that part of the survey done as early as possible. We break into three teams and walk across pre-assigned fields. Eastern Meadowlark is our main target, but other species occasionally encountered include Ring-necked Pheasant, Wilson's Snipe, Northern Harrier, Short-eared Owl, Snowy Owl, Horned Lark, American Pipit, Snow Bunting and Savannah Sparrow.

Sunrise on the runways

Our teams split up just after dawn and headed to our starting fields. HJ Kim, Kenelma Perez, Bob Washburn and I spread out across the small triangle of grassland that lies between the airport's main roadway and the southwestern runway. I was still walking to the far end of the field when I heard Bob yelling something. He had been walking a route closest to the runway and had only progressed a few yards. He waved us over.

From a distance I saw something bright white hunkered down in the vegetation. I thought, "Snowy Owl?" My heart jumped. As I approached the large, white mass of feathers and got a clearer view of the large bird, my brain nearly broke. Gannet?! What the heck was a gannet doing sitting in the grass?

Gannets have short legs set very far back on their bodies. They are similar in design to loons in that they are built for pursuing prey underwater, not walking on land. In order to take off from water, they require a running start, flapping heavily while kicking with their feet. We weren't sure how it ended up at the edge of this tangled vegetation, but we needed to get it out and to the water's edge.

Gannets are large seabirds with a nearly 6' wingspan. Their bill is long and dagger-like with a serrated edge. Standing close to this bird as it made deep, guttural growls and grunts with that weapon agape was, well, terrifying. So I did what any brave, adult male would do, I called over Michelle.

I was aware that Michelle has had extensive experience rescuing wildlife in distress, but was still in total awe as she almost effortlessly corralled then grabbed this snarling monster of a bird. As luck would have it, Mark Iantosca, another team member, had a perfect, gannet-sized Rubbermaid container in his car. With the bird loaded into the car, Michelle and her other teammates drove to the water at the edge of the boat launch and released it.

I think that the previous day's weather played a major role in the gannet's grounding. Winds were gusting up to 45mph. In fact, on the day of the count, we were seeing an unprecedented number of gannets flying around Jamaica Bay. They are normally seen out over the ocean, so surmise that the strong winds had pushed many of them into the bay. In addition, we had been experiencing extensive amounts of rain. When scouting Floyd Bennett Field the day before the count, much of the runways were flooded. I suspect the bird saw the water and landed in it, not realizing it was merely a very large, shallow puddle. When it attempted to takeoff, it ended up at the edge of the field, which is full of thorny vines.

I’ve been participating in the annual Christmas Bird Count since the 1990s and can say, with no hesitation, that this was my most memorable count experience.

When Michelle drove off with the gannet to the boat launch, the rest of us continued our walk across the grassland. My small group was about halfway across the first field when an Eastern Meadowlark flushed up from the grass. Meadowlarks have a distinctive, stuttering wing beat, and very noticeable white outer tail feathers. It was a very easy identification. I only managed to get a few, not-so-great, flight photos.

Eastern Meadowlark

The remnant evergreen stands within our covered areas held a few Red-breasted Nuthatches and the expected abundance of Yellow-rumped Warblers.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Another nice surprise for the day was finding a small flock of Eastern Bluebirds at the picnic area adjacent to the community gardens. I've seen bluebirds on the CBC in the past, but it has been quite a long time since the last sighting.

We always wrap up our day by meeting all the teams at the boat launch parking lot at the edge of the bay. There is a large congregation of assorted gulls that assemble here as the sun goes down. The dominant species (by a large margin) is always Ring-billed Gull, but a rare species or two is in the back of everyone's minds. As luck would have it, we were able to add Iceland Gull and Lesser Black-backed Gull to our list. Both species are scarce, but likely observed by teams covering the ocean terrains.

Iceland Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull

We finished our day with a very respectable 75 species. This is two more species than last year and a new record for Floyd Bennett Field (last year was the previous record!). We also managed two saves for the entire Brooklyn borough. If you are new to Christmans Bird Count lingo, a "save" is a species that no other team observed that day. In all, I was extremely happy with the results and feel incredibly lucky to have such great people each year on Team Floyd Bennett Field.

Here's our final species list for the day. Highlighted species are our team's saves.

Brant	Red-throated Loon	Red-breasted Nuthatch
Canada Goose	Common Loon	Brown Creeper
Mute Swan	Northern Gannet	Carolina Wren
Gadwall	Great Cormorant	European Starling
American Wigeon	Double-crested Cormorant	Northern Mockingbird
Mallard	Great Blue Heron	Eastern Bluebird
American Black Duck	Sharp-shinned Hawk	Hermit Thrush
Greater Scaup	Cooper's Hawk	American Robin
Lesser Scaup	Northern Harrier	Cedar Waxwing
Surf Scoter	Bald Eagle	House Sparrow
Black Scoter	Red-shouldered Hawk	American Pipit
Long-tailed Duck	Red-tailed Hawk	House Finch
Bufflehead	American Barn Owl	American Goldfinch
Red-breasted Merganser	Red-bellied Woodpecker	Field Sparrow
Rock Pigeon	Downy Woodpecker	American Tree Sparrow
Mourning Dove	Northern Flicker	Fox Sparrow
American Oystercatcher	American Kestrel	Dark-eyed Junco
Black-bellied Plover	Merlin	White-throated Sparrow
American Woodcock	Peregrine Falcon	Savannah Sparrow
Ring-billed Gull	Blue Jay	Song Sparrow
American Herring Gull	American Crow	Swamp Sparrow
Great Black-backed Gull	Common Raven	Eastern Meadowlark
Lesser Black-backed Gull	Black-capped Chickadee	Red-winged Blackbird
Iceland Gull	Tufted Titmouse	Yellow-rumped Warbler
Horned Grebe	Horned Lark	Northern Cardinal