Ted Floyd, the editor of BIRDING Magazine (a publication of the American Birding Association for which I do some writing and editing) was on Long Island and we agreed to meet early this morning at Montauk. Since Ted lives and works in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the ocean is a bit of an exotic locale for him (not that I get out to Montauk that often). I even tried to find some kind of ocean-going vessel from which he could bird-watch but birding pelagic trips are long over for the season and even the Montauk party fishing boats just go a few yards off the point these days. So we settled for the overlooks from the back of the restaurant (closed for the winter but with an open terrace that offers good views over Block Island Sound) and the cliffs at Camp Hero (with spectacular views over the Atlantic). We also stopped at Ditch Plains and at the entrance to Lake Montauk.
The reason the Montauk party fishing boats don't have to go far at this time of the year is the same reason that fisherman line the shore surfcasting on a windy, threatening Tuesday morning in late October: there are fish right off the point. And where they are fish, there are birds to catch them. Ironically, the birds and the larger fish (the ones the fisherfolk are trying to catch) are feeding on the same schools of bait fish. As is well known, fishermen on boats and on shore use the presence and location of fishing birds to decide where they should cast their lines.
When I say fishing birds, I mean lots of fishing birds. Most extraordinary were the numbers of Laughing Gulls around the point, literally thousands upon thousands of them feeding in ever-shifting patterns. The Laughing Gulls that were not already part of the feeding frenzy were winging their way towards the action, creating a scene that was constantly in motion, seemingly in every direction. Sometimes the birds were spread out but they would often coalesce into feeding flocks -- pods, hordes, vortices of birds twisting and turning, dipping and plucking at the lapping, cresting water in an extraordinary meeting of air and sea. Laughing Gulls are not rare or exotic birds -- they are the common summer gull in New York City waters -- but it was amazing to see them en masse, riding the wind and scraping the rolling surface of water roiled by the wind, currents, unseen fish and on-coming bad weather.
The Laughing Gulls were not alone. They were accompanied by Herring Gulls -- mostly young birds -- and a very few Great Black-backed Gulls. Nearby were an exceptional number of Northern Gannets in all plumages (but dominated by adult birds), diving, resurfacing, digesting, taking flight again. The numbers and closeness of the Gannets hurtling out of the air into the water was also special and occasionally a Gannet would soar close to the cliffs on which we were standing, showing the blue bill, buffy head and neck, and enormous size of this sea bird. Gannets are as big or bigger than albatrosses and, although their wingspan is somewhat less, they soar almost as effortlessly.
Just off shore, there were many hundreds of Common Eiders, also in all plumages. Further out were long strings of Scoters, mostly Black but also including lesser numbers of Surf and White-winged Scoters. Other notables included both loons and a few Long-tailed Ducks.
Our aim in visiting the point was to find pelagics and in this respect we did not do so well. We got a distant glimpse of one fast-moving jaeger, either a Pomarine or a Parasitic (the bird looked more like the former but the odds favor the latter this close to shore). A single Great Cormorant was sitting on the east jetty at the entrance to Montauk Harbor and, at Ditch Plains, we saw a few Sanderlings along with, yes, hundreds and thousands more Laughing Gulls.
Eric Salzman
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