A Big Queens Big Day: Part 4, Finishing Up and the List

We had agreed that our Queens Big Day, after lasting all day and encompassing many great birds, would finish where it started, within the friendly and familiar confines of Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. We three intrepid big day birders, me, Doug Gochfeld and Heydi Lopes, joined again by Shane Blodgett, would try to fill in the gaps in our li…wait, flyover Boat-tailed Grackle in the parking lot! One gaping hole in the list filled and bird number 143! We got our scopes and marched, double time, down to the south edge of the West Pond, hoping for some ducks we had missed and a Tricolored Heron. The heron was not there, most of the ducks dodged us, except, wait, Northern Shoveler! Bird number 144!

We scanned south marsh and the pond some more and came up with nothing new so we started to double time back to parking lot so we could get across Cross Bay Boulevard to the East Pond to search for more ducks. Doug lingered behind a bit, eager for one more scan and then he shouted “Peregrine Falcon!”

We looked up, got it rocketing along, and rejoiced at bird number 145, a bird that we had long since given up on seeing. Once we crossed Cross Bay Boulevard and started single file down the path to Big John’s Pond I started to relax, thinking that we could see nothing new until we reached the pond. Then an odd thrush hopped up off the trail and into a low sapling. Wait, that bird isn’t a thrush! It’s a tanager! A female Summer Tanager! Bird number 146! Mind you, I hadn’t seen a Summer Tanager all year and they are not a bird one can expect to see in New York every year. The fact that one basically landed at our feet at the very end of a big day is simply absurd. Not that we were complaining…

Big John’s Pond held neither our hoped-for Green Heron nor our much-needed Wood Duck, but the East Pond had both Green-winged Teal and Blue-winged Teal, bringing our total to 148. We really wanted 150 species, so we stayed and waited and stayed and waited and then a Tricolored Heron flew overhead on its way in to roost and we were up to 149! As much as we waited we could not add another species…until now, when I was writing this post and realized that somehow Virgina Rail had been left off our checklist and we actually did get 150 species of bird in Queens in one day! Whoo-freaking-hoo!

As amazing a big day as it was we still missed some really, really, easy birds. An incomplete list of some of the relatively easy species we dipped on includes Wood Duck, Cedar Waxwing, Lesser Scaup, Green Heron, Seaside Sparrow, Northern Harrier, Eastern Wood-Pewee, Blue-winged Warbler, Swamp Sparrow, Canada Warbler, White-crowned Sparrow, Belted Kingfisher, and Common Nighthawk.

Here is our list, for those who are interested in such things…

1. Brant
2. Canada Goose
3. Mute Swan
4. Gadwall
5. American Black Duck
6. Mallard
7. Blue-winged Teal
8. Northern Shoveler
9. Green-winged Teal
10. Greater Scaup
11. White-winged Scoter
12. Bufflehead
13. Red-breasted Merganser
14. Ruddy Duck
15. Ring-necked Pheasant
16. Common Loon
17. Northern Gannet
18. Double-crested Cormorant
19. Great Blue Heron
20. Great Egret
21. Snowy Egret
22. Little Blue Heron
23. Tricolored Heron
24. Black-crowned Night-Heron
25. Yellow-crowned Night-Heron
26. Glossy Ibis
27. White-faced Ibis
28. Osprey
29. Red-tailed Hawk
30. Merlin
31. Peregrine Falcon
32. Clapper Rail
33. Virginia Rail
34. Black-bellied Plover
35. Semipalmated Plover
36. Piping Plover
37. Killdeer
38. American Oystercatcher
39. Spotted Sandpiper
40. Solitary Sandpiper
41. Greater Yellowlegs
42. Willet
43. Lesser Yellowlegs
44. Ruddy Turnstone
45. Red Knot
46. Sanderling
47. Semipalmated Sandpiper
48. Least Sandpiper
49. Dunlin
50. Short-billed Dowitcher
51. American Woodcock
52. Bonaparte’s Gull
53. Little Gull
54. Laughing Gull
55. Ring-billed Gull
56. Herring Gull
57. Glaucous Gull
58. Great Black-backed Gull
59. Least Tern
60. Gull-billed Tern
61. Black Tern
62. Roseate Tern
63. Common Tern
64. Forster’s Tern
65. Black Skimmer
66. Rock Pigeon
67. Mourning Dove
68. Yellow-billed Cuckoo
69. Barn Owl
70. Great Horned Owl
71. Chimney Swift
72. Ruby-throated Hummingbird
73. Red-bellied Woodpecker
74. Downy Woodpecker
75. Hairy Woodpecker
76. Northern Flicker
77. Willow Flycatcher
78. Great Crested Flycatcher
79. Eastern Kingbird
80. White-eyed Vireo
81. Yellow-throated Vireo
82. Blue-headed Vireo
83. Warbling Vireo
84. Red-eyed Vireo
85. Blue Jay
86. American Crow
87. Fish Crow
88. Common Raven
89. Tree Swallow
90. Northern Rough-winged Swallow
91. Bank Swallow
92. Cliff Swallow
93. Barn Swallow
94. Black-capped Chickadee
95. Tufted Titmouse
96. White-breasted Nuthatch
97. Carolina Wren
98. House Wren
99. Marsh Wren
100. Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
101. Veery
102. Bicknell’s Thrush
103. Swainson’s Thrush
104. Wood Thrush
105. American Robin
106. Gray Catbird
107. Northern Mockingbird
108. Brown Thrasher
109. European Starling
110. Tennessee Warbler
111. Orange-crowned Warbler
112. Nashville Warbler
113. Northern Parula
114. Yellow Warbler
115. Chestnut-sided Warbler
116. Magnolia Warbler
117. Black-throated Blue Warbler
118. Yellow-rumped Warbler
119. Black-throated Green Warbler
120. Blackburnian Warbler
121. Prairie Warbler
122. Blackpoll Warbler
123. Black-and-white Warbler
124. American Redstart
125. Worm-eating Warbler
126. Ovenbird
127. Northern Waterthrush
128. Common Yellowthroat
129. Wilson’s Warbler
130. Summer Tanager
131. Scarlet Tanager
132. Eastern Towhee
133. Chipping Sparrow
134. Savannah Sparrow
135. Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow
136. Song Sparrow
137. White-throated Sparrow
138. Northern Cardinal
139. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
140. Indigo Bunting
141. Bobolink
142. Red-winged Blackbird
143. Common Grackle
144. Boat-tailed Grackle
145. Brown-headed Cowbird
146. Orchard Oriole
147. Baltimore Oriole
148. House Finch
149. American Goldfinch
150. House Sparrow