Observer: Skye Haas
Species counted:
Brant - 66
Gadwall - 8
American Wigeon - 12
American Black Duck - 13
Blue-winged Teal - 1
Northern Shoveler - 1
Northern Pintail - 5
Green-winged Teal - 47
Redhead - 5
Ruddy Duck - 5
Greater Scaup - 10
Lesser Scaup - 24
Surf Scoter - 7,214
White-winged Scoter - 6
Black Scoter - 2,608
Dark-winged Scoter - 1,662
Bufflehead - 4
Red-breasted Merganser - 1
Red-throated Loon - 60
Common Loon - 102
Horned Grebe - 14
Northern Gannet - 4,190
Brown Pelican - 76
Double-crested Cormorant - 2,016
Great Cormorant - 1
Great Blue Heron - 13
Laughing Gull - 154
Bonaparte's Gull - 14
Ring-billed Gull - 37
Great Black-backed Gull - 31
Thayer's Gull/Iceland Gull - 1
Caspian Tern - 7
Forster's Tern - 178
Royal Tern - 113
Parasitic Jaeger - 8
American Oystercatcher - 23
Black-bellied Plover - 190
Semipalmated Plover - 4
Red Knot - 60
Ruddy Turnstone - 2
Sanderling - 800
Dunlin - 400
Western Sandpiper - 1
Semipalmated Sandpiper - 2
Purple Sandpiper - 1
Dowitcher sp. - 3
Total: 20,193
A note from Skye:
Another good Northern Gannet flight today! Just under 4200 Gannets went winging by the Seawatch, though there presence has been sparking some conversation among the long-time Avalon sea-watchers. Why so many young birds? Why so early when the water is still so warm? Is there a dearth of prey items further north sending these birds south early? And will my Gannet clicker take another day like today? I hope so, because while rare, 10,000 Gannet days have been had at Avalon before; I can only imagine what that looks like, and just maybe I'll get to find out!
Scoters started to pick up some today, but we still have a ways to go. Right now the question of what will be the "big day" is looming- Tom sez'Saturday so bring your galoshes as it is predicted to be a wet one. Another 100+ Common Loon day was good to see, and we set the season high count for Brown Pelican with 76 birds. And in the category of "if only it had made a closer pass" was an adult Thayer's/Iceland Gull that was particularly dark pigmented in the primaries. Oh well, all I can say is it was a pretty white-winged gull framed against the steely blue clouds of the cold front hitting the Atlantic.
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| Northern Gannet. [Photo by Mike Kilpatrick.] |
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| Brown Pelican. [Photo by Mike Kilpatrick.] |
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