Staten Island 4/9--Some Surprises

A full day of birding Staten Island with Ben Cacace yielded a large list and some interesting surprises. The day started with Shari dropping Ben & me off at Mount Loretto while she went to model as a pin cushion for a couple of hours.

We walked up the grasslands trail to a little path that goes out onto a spit in one of the ponds. There we picked up Pine & Palm Warblers. There wasn't much waterfowl on the northernmost ponds so we walked up the hill to check out Raritan Bay. There the water look fairly empty too, but very close in was my first surprise:  Northern Gannet. Rarely do you get to see these big birds so close up standing on the shore. In fact, I don't know that I've ever had a closer look at one. In all, I saw about 5, though I think Ben counted more. We walked almost all the trails, picking up a wide variety of the expected birds, with 4 raptors in the mix.  Toward the end of our trek we came to a pond on the left side of the entrance road where there are usually ducks (and there were) and came across a shorebird on the far shore. First reaction was yellowlegs, but the more we looked at it the less it seem like either the greater or lesser. (I thought it was too early for lesser, but according to eBird, they could be here by now.) Still, it's legs didn't seem yellow and the bill seemed too small for either yellowlegs, and it just didn't have the gizz for either species. And it wasn't calling; in my experience, yellowlegs are pretty noisy. After some hemming and hawing we settled on Solitary Sandpiper (it was alone), a bird that I certainly didn't expect to see today. After seeing some genuine Greater Yellowlegs later in the day, the ID seems  meet and proper to me.

The weirdest thing we saw was a Brown-headed Cowbird sidling up to a starling, looking like he wanted to get cozy.

I counted 39 species--Ben had a few more that I wasn't able to see well enough to list in good conscience.
Mount Loretto

Number of species:    39
Brant    50
Canada Goose    5
Mute Swan    2
Gadwall    2
Mallard    6
Northern Shoveler    2
Red-breasted Merganser    8
Northern Gannet    5
Double-crested Cormorant    3
Great Egret    2
Turkey Vulture    2
Sharp-shinned Hawk    1
Red-tailed Hawk    1
Merlin    1
Solitary Sandpiper    1
Ring-billed Gull    X
Great Black-backed Gull    4
Mourning Dove    1
Belted Kingfisher    1
Red-bellied Woodpecker    1
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker    1
Northern Flicker    5
Blue Jay    1
American Crow    1
Fish Crow    1
Tree Swallow    1
Barn Swallow    1
Black-capped Chickadee    3
Carolina Wren    3
American Robin    5
European Starling    25
Pine Warbler    2
Palm Warbler    1
Song Sparrow    6
Dark-eyed Junco    1
Northern Cardinal    5
Red-winged Blackbird    15
Common Grackle    5
Brown-headed Cowbird    3

Next stop, after a diner lunch, was Great Kills Park. The treat there was Horned Grebes molting into their breeding plumage. A spectacular looking bird compared to its drab, gray winter version. We checked the bluffs along the mud flats for Bank Swallows, but it's too early for them.

Great Kills Park
 Notes:    Mud flats and Marina
Number of species:    20
Brant    700
Canada Goose    2
American Black Duck    4
Bufflehead    3
Red-breasted Merganser    4
Horned Grebe    7
Northern Gannet    5
Double-crested Cormorant    10
Osprey    1
American Oystercatcher    4
Ring-billed Gull    10
Herring Gull    50
Rock Pigeon    4
American Robin    5
Northern Mockingbird    1
European Starling    10
Song Sparrow    3
Northern Cardinal    2
Red-winged Blackbird    3
Boat-tailed Grackle    6

We stopped at the William T. Davis Refuge in the Greenbelt, hoping for some spring migrants, but not much was shaking there. A woodpecker we couldn't ID by it's sound was hammering away at a tree. We did add White-throated Sparrow to the day list.
William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge

Number of species:    6
Mourning Dove    1
Black-capped Chickadee    1
American Robin    3
Northern Mockingbird    1
White-throated Sparrow    1
House Sparrow    1

Goethals Pond, where Shari & I haven't been in years, was our next destination. Ben knew a couple of paths behind the trailer park (yes, a trailer park on Staten Island--I suspect the only one in the environs of New York City) where we could get much better looks than the observation platform off the Home Depot parking lot. Killdeer and lots of Greater Yellowlegs were on the mud (the pond was virtually empty but certainly not dry). Off in a corner, across the brown muck, past the orange Home Depot shopping carts, the faded traffic cone, the half-buried tires, was a flock of Green-winged Teal in a puddle. And among those teal was one Green-winged Teal (Eurasian) with a horizontal white stripe instead of the usual vertical one along the shoulder, a "life" bird for all 3 of us though since it is only a race of teal (it doesn't even qualify as a sub-species), nothing that will show up on our life lists. Still, it was certainly a surprise to finally see one in that desolate corner of the island (where once a Roseate Spoonbill picked its way among the overturned carts). 

Goethals Pond
Number of species:    13
Canada Goose    10
Mallard    1
Green-winged Teal    20
GREEN-WINGED TEAL (EURASIAN)    1
Snowy Egret    3
Turkey Vulture    1
Killdeer    4
Greater Yellowlegs    15
Rock Pigeon    10
American Robin    3
Northern Mockingbird    1
Northern Cardinal    1
Red-winged Blackbird    5

On our way to the Verrazano Bridge I got the inspiration to make one more stop and check out the South Beach Psychiatric Center for Wild Turkeys. Ben didn't know this little avian secret of the island and happily, there they were, behind the fence, 8 of them. With a little more time I would have like to have found the "Turkey Crossing" sign on Midland Avenue, but as it was, it was a satisfying ending to an excellent day of birding. 55 species in all for me (and as I said, probably a few more for Ben).

South Beach Psychiatric Center
Number of species:    5
Canada Goose    5
Wild Turkey    8
Fish Crow    1
American Robin    X
European Starling    X