Autumn is definitely here! This morning was the coldest I have yet experienced in the US. It was a beautiful day though, and I decided to visit the fabled Jones Beach for the first time, to twitch the
Common Ground-Dove that has been hanging around for a week or so. The site itself looks like an excellent migrant-trap, with a variety of habitats including beach, dunes, reedbeds and mixed woodland, with a sheltered inlet by the coast guard station for winter waterfowl and gulls. Despite the cold snap the expected fall of migrants didn't really appear, but it was a nice morning nevertheless. Best bird at the Coast Guard station was a pair of
Red-breasted Merganser, other birds included; a flyover
Common Loon, Ring-billed, Herring and
Great Black-backed Gulls, Brant, Canada Goose, American Oystercatcher and quite a lot of
Double-crested Cormorant.
The west car park area had lots of
Northern Flickers, Yellow-rumped Warblers and
Tree Swallows, with lots of
Red-winged Blackbirds passing through. Other birds included a pair of
House Finch, as well as a female
Northern Harrier.
The
Common Ground-Dove, the object of the twitch, was much more elusive. As I was waiting with a couple of other birders it was seen briefly very nearby by a fourth birder who's assumed we were looking at it. It was flushed and disappeared for a while. An hour or so later, after I returned from the coast guard station, I saw a
Mourning Dove fly through the beach scrub. It was closely followed by a smaller bird which we assumed to be the target bird, however I got nothing on it at all, so a dippy end to a pleasant morning. Jones Beach is good though, I shall come back regularly I think...
Northern Harrier
Hundreds of
Tree Swallows were flying en masse over the reedbeds. Occasionally they would drop down onto the low bushes and feed on the berries, very odd behaviour for a swallow!
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