SOFO on Dune Road

This morning's SOFO walk on Dune Road started at Shinnecock Inlet where there was a handsome male Surf Scoter -- "Skunk Coot" in the old bayman's lingo (because of the black-and-white plumage) -- sitting in the ocean just inside the near jetty. It was, as it turned out, the best bird of the trip.

The rest of the morning was spent moving west on Dune Road with stops at Road L, the old Ponquogue Bridge road (under the new bridge), Road K, Tiana Beach and the Quogue Boardwalk Refuge, all on the bay side. There was a fair movement of swallows dominated by Barn Swallows but also including numbers of Tree Swallows and a few Banks; there will be tens of thousands more a-comin' in the next few weeks. On the shorebird scene, the Short-billed Dowitcher movement finally petered out but there were increasing numbers of Black-bellied and Semipalmated Plovers, one or two Piping Plovers, Sanderlings, small numbers of Willets and American Oystercatchers, both Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, and many Ruddy Turnstones. Least Terns, old and young, were at Tiana Beach along with the Common Terns, old and young, and there was a fly-by of Royal Terns (but none perched on the sand). Great Blue Herons are increasing in numbers and joining the Great and Snowy Egrets; there was just a single Glossy Ibis in a mud flat south of the road. In addition to the swallows, other passerines included a flock of Boat-tailed Grackles of different ages and sizes at Ponquogue and a few land birds at the Quogue Boardwalk (Black-and-white Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Eastern Towhee and House Wren).

Eric Salzman