a singing Yellow Warbler

This weekend saw me down in the Big Apple again, and Daisy spending all day Saturday studying for law school again.  So I joined her in the library studying.  Okay, that was a lie: of course I wasn’t studying in a library, I was busy studying birds in four different parks in Nassau County and Queens!

Hempstead Lake State Park was my first stop and it wasn’t as impressive as I thought it would be.  This weekend is historically the best weekend in the New York City metropolitan area for catching spring migrants and Hempstead Lake is supposed to be one of the best spring migration hotspots but I only found ten species of warbler.

Wait, only?  So I’m greedy.  Sue me.  Somehow Northern Parula, Yellow Warbler, my first of the year Magnolia Warbler, Black-throated Blue and Black-throated Green Warblers, Black-and-white Warbler, Ovenbird, Northern Waterthrush, American Redstart, and Common Yellowthroat just weren’t enough for me. 

I had to spend a half-an-hour trying to turn a Warbling Vireo into a Swainson’s Warbler.  I know Warbling Vireos.  I know their song.  I know their field marks (okay, lack of field marks).  For some reason I was convinced that this particular Warbling Vireo was a rare warbler.  When the light bulb in my head finally went off and I realized that I had just spent so much precious early-morning time on a Warbling Vireo I nearly threw my binoculars, gave up birding and became a stamp-collector.  But I persevered and tracked down my first of the year Great Crested Flycatcher and Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

When Mike called I had just about had it with Hempstead Lake anyway so I quickly agreed to meet him at Jones Beach where we would try to track down the reported Gull-billed Terns, which would be a lifer for both of us, and Red Knots, which I saw for the first time two weeks ago, but he had never seen.

Meeting up with Mike was a bit worrisome.  Before the last time I had birded with him we had both added lifers to our lists each time we had birded together.  Would our streak resume or would we start a new streak of striking out on our target species?

I got to the Coast Guard Station at Jones Beach first and was dismayed to see clam diggers on the sandbar.  I did see some gorgeous Black-bellied Plovers in full breeding plumage, and made sure of my identification by asking a young birder nearby to confirm it.

Common Tern at Jones Beach 

Once Mike arrived we quickly picked out the black bill and legs of a Gull-billed Tern (it was actually pretty darn easy) and also spotted Least, Forster’s and Common Terns.  A distant flock of shorebirds on the one part of the sandbar not inhabited by clam diggers contained Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers, Mike’s life Red Knots, more Black-bellied Plovers, Ruddy Turnstones and at least one Sanderling.  We were fortunate in getting good views through a scope that belonged to another birder whose name I failed to get.

A couple Common Loons were in the water and Willets and Semipalmated Plovers fed along the shore.  Back in the parking lot we were impressed by the beauty of a male Rose-breasted Grosbeak that flew from tree to tree, but refused to give me a good picture.  We were even more impressed by the hoards of mosquitoes that attacked in vast squadrons whenever we left the breezes blowing off the water.

an obliging Herring Gull at Jones Beach

A walk away from the water was cut short because of the blood-sucking, beastly mosquitoes without seeing much of note other than a Brown Thrasher.  We decided the best thing to do would be to go to Valley Stream State Park and see if we could track down the true targets of any spring day’s birding on the east coast.

So come back tomorrow and see if we found any warblers!