All of the pictures here were taken at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge today. Please leave your guesses as to what species are depicted in the first two shots in the comments. For the third picture I am just asking for the total number of species in the picture but if you want to list them, well, knock yourself out! Good luck! An answer post will be up by the end of the week.
Quiz Picture 1
Quiz Picture 2
Quiz Picture 3
Corey is a New Yorker who lived most of his life in upstate New York but has lived in Queens since 2008. He's only been birding since 2005 but has garnered a respectable life list by birding whenever he wasn't working as a union representative or spending time with his family. He lives in Forest Hills with Daisy and Desmond Shearwater. His bird photographs have appeared on the Today Show, in Birding, Living Bird Magazine, Bird Watcher's Digest, and many other fine publications. He is also the author of the American Birding Association Field Guide to the Birds of New York.
1. Great Blue Heron
2. Great Egret
3. 5 Species (Herring Gull,Ring-billed Gull, Common Tern, Gull-billed Tern, Short-billed Dowitcher)
Agree with Great Blue on #1. I’m leaning towards Least Bittern on #2. Also get 5 on #3 but I see Laughing Gulls, Common Terns, Forster’s Terns, Least Tern and Short-billed Dowitcher.
Forgot about Laughing Gulls, since they don’t occur where I am… They are easy to forget, but they are common there.
I am guessing the following species:
#1: Little Blue Heron
#2: Black-crowned Night-heron
#3: really difficult!
I can see
Laughing Gull
Least Tern
Forster’s Tern
Dowitchers (presumably Short-billed)
and then there may be a few Common Terns and a single Sandwich Tern but both calls are hard to make at that resolution.
Aaand, there is one tern I presume is a Gull-billed Tern, but I am really not sure if there are any Common Terns on the pic.
Okay, 6 species on pic # 3:
Laughing Gull
(Short-billed) Dowitcher
Least Tern
Forster’s Tern
Sandwich Tern
Gull-billed Tern
Aaaah, this is so mean: there’s half a gull head in the foreground that might be an American Herring Gull.
I suppose I give up now…
Well, I will say that so far that one of the first two ahve been answered correctly and no one has correctly guessed the number of species…so I’ll wait a bit for an answer post…
1. Great Blue Heron
2. Black-crowned Night Heron
3. 6 species (Laughing Gull, Forster’s Tern, Least Term, Gull-billed Tern, Short Dowitchers, Ring-billed Gull, and there may or may not be a Great Kiskadee in the bottom middle)
Wait, change the first one to Tricolored Heron, but only if you have them up there.
#2 Black-crowned night heron for sure, Laughing Gull, and that Herring? Gull in the foreground that’s blurry, as well as Least, Forsters and Gull-billed Terns. I don’t think I see any commons… and the SB dowitchers.
So no-one shares my thought of there being a Sandwich Tern just to the left and behind the Least?
Hmmm…
Additionally, a few of these small blobs on the sand look a lot like some woodpecker.
Furthest back bird a Bonaparte’s Gull or similar and 2nd dowitcher from the left a Long-billed for 7? Probably should stop guessing unless there’s a better shot available.
I also though there might be a Long Dowitcher in there, especially the second from the left since it looks a little hunch-backed, but I think it’s just the angle.
I see a couple darker-billed terns in there, perhaps the ones Jochen says may be Sandwich, but the head doesn’t look flat enough for SATE, so they could be Commons. I’m thinking specifically of one in the bottom left behind two Forster’s.