December 27 - Long Island birding

This morning my friend Bill E and I went to Southampton, Long Island to try for the Black Guillemot tha has been seen there for more than a week. We arrived just past 8 and ran into Sean Sime who reported seeing the bird about an hour earlier flying in off the ocean to the calmer bay.
We then waited in heavy fog for the bird and during this time met another birder who had driven from Maryland. After about an hour the fog lifted and Bill located the bird next to a seawall only about 30 feet offshore ! We had tremendous looks at the bird for about a quarter-hour before it swan farther offshore. We were able to see it eat a very large fish as well.

More images can be seen here, at Shai Mitra's website.


Next we stopped at Capri Lake in West Islip. This brackish pond has a wonderful diversity of duck species each winter, and today was no exception. Canvasbacks, Red-Headed Ducks, Green-winged Teal, Gadwall, Black Duck, Mallard, Lesser Scaup, Ruddy Duck, Hooded Merganser were all seen well.
Our next stop was Massapequa Preserve where we tallied 4 Tundra Swans.

The Tundra Swan & Guillemot bring my NY State Life bird list to 300 !