On Saturday, December 20th I participated on the Northern Nassau County Christmas Bird Count. THe circle covers Northern Nassau County from Port Washington to Lloyd's Neck, south to Jericho and all points north. I counted on the Oyster Bay Cove team with Bill Reeves, this being his 65th annual NN CBC, and several other of the usual co-counters in the area.
Since the day was shortened due to the approaching snowstorm, we cut out one of our less important stops. Our first location was the East Woods School. Here we had some good birds, including 4 Golden-crowned Kinglets, 3 Red-winged Blackbirds, 150 Dark-eyed Juncos, 15 Cedar Waxwings, and our only Gary Catbird. From there we moved to the Pulling Estate, which turned out to be much more quiet the East Woods, and we didn't see any outstanding birds there. Our next location was probably the best, Tiffany Creek. Here we found 100 American Goldfinches, 150 House Finches, 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk, 2 Red-breasted Nuthatches, 1 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, and the highlight of the day 6 Rusty Blackbirds.
Tiffany Creek
We then went to the Theodore Roosevelt Sanctuary where many birds were visiting the feeders,, including 3 Common Grackles and 5 Red-winged Blackbirds. We also found large numbers of common feeder birds like Mourning Doves. Our final stop, the Tiffany Creek Preserve was also good, with three Eastern Towhees, 2 Winter Wrens, and good numbers of other birds.
At the compilation we learned that many good birds had been seen, inluding 4 Wilson's Snipe, a Lesser Black-backed Gull, a Green Heron, and 2 Count Week Ravens. Although we only got 100 species for the total count, it was a good day, and thankfully the snow held off for the night.
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