---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Ryan Goldberg <ryan.goldberg@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, February 27, 2023
Subject: Trip summary: February 25th "Tilden and Breezy: The Final Weeks of Winter"
To: Peter Dorosh <prosbird@gmail.com>
Hi Peter,
A group of 13 birders braved one of the colder days (temps in the mid-twenties) of this mild winter on Saturday, Feb. 25, hiking from Fort Tilden to the Breezy Point Tip and back, a round-trip of roughly seven miles. It was enjoyable crossing the beach from the Silver Gull Club to the start of the 4x4 trail in Breezy Point, a stretch of sand that you can only access by foot as we did.
Scoters and Northern Gannets were migrating along the coast in large numbers, so the timing of the trip was perfect. There were plenty of highlights to choose from: all three scoter species, five Razorbills by the jetty at the Tip, a flock of 50 snow buntings circling overhead just past the Silver Gull Club, a second-year Lesser Black-backed Gull, a Tree Swallow flock in the Breezy dunes, and the steady stream of gannets filling the sky at times. Four American Tree Sparrows foraged by the fisherman's parking lot. And there were two neat surprises: a drake Green-winged Teal came in off the ocean soon after we got onto the Tilden beach, then quickly picked up and continued east, in active migration it seemed; and later, close to shore in Breezy Point, we found the odd duck out trying to blend in with a closely-packed group of nine bufflehead: a hen Common Goldeneye. Are buffleheads like the chickadees of the sea, with other ducks wanting to flock with them?
Here are our checklists (photos inside) -- thanks to Richard for sharing the list-keeping duties:
https://ebird.org/checklist/S129639042 (Fort Tilden)
https://ebird.org/checklist/S129642295 (Breezy Point Beach)
https://ebird.org/checklist/S129639544 (Breezy Point Tip)
Trip leader: Ryan Goldberg
Participants: Joe Weisbord, Marisa Hernandez, André Tulet, Angie Co, Amy Cook, Barbara Phillips, Barbara Schelkle, Danielle Khalife, Nate Lavieri-Scull, Xinyi Zhang, Richard Payne, Rose Rimler.
Ryan
--
""What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness."
- John Steinbeck
