Thanksgiving Birdwatching at JBWR

What better way to spend Thanksgiving than birdwatching? I was tempted to suggest a trip to Staten Island to see the turkeys around South Beach Psychiatric Center but thought better of it  once I considered the traffic.

Instead, we continued our tradition of birding Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Ducks! 12 species, plus 3 species of geese. At first, the Snow Geese were far off in the bay, but suddenly a flock of about 200 descended on the West Pond honking and splashing down not very gracefully.

A Merlin flew off as we approached the blind at Big John's Pond. The swans were on the East Pond and not very many, compared to the numbers this summer (probably in the hundreds). The 3 Gadwalls were also on the East Pond. Not to say they weren't also on the West, but we didn't see them among all the scaup, shovelers, and ruddies.

Total species: 32

Snow Goose     200

Brant     1000

Canada Goose     150

Mute Swan    5

Gadwall    3

American Wigeon     35

American Black Duck     110

Mallard     75

Northern Shoveler     125

Northern Pintail     1

Green-winged Teal     65

Lesser Scaup     350

Bufflehead     4

Hooded Merganser     1

Red-breasted Merganser     1

Ruddy Duck     800

Horned Grebe     4

Double-crested Cormorant    20

Great Blue Heron     3

Merlin 1

American Coot     10

Herring Gull     10

Great Black-backed Gull     2

American Crow   2

Carolina Wren     3

Northern Mockingbird     4

European Starling     200

Yellow-rumped Warbler     6

American Tree Sparrow     1

Song Sparrow     3

White-throated Sparrow     10

House Finch     5