With the storm essentially done and dusted, barring a late surprise report, I think we can put a bow on this one!
In my prior post, with the storm still a couple days away, I mentioned three mechanisms by which this system might spice up our local southern New England birding.
First, we discussed wind-blown seabirds that might drift close to, or even over, land. This was already happening pre-storm with a few Leach's Storm-Petrels. Well, as expected, this effect only increased as the storm strengthened and approached. The persistent northeast winds drove several species from their typical open ocean haunts. The Leach's Petrels, which are particularly prone to wrecking, were driven southwestward and funneled into corners, such as the SW corner of Cape Cod Bay and the far western end of Long Island Sound.
Your traditional eastern Massachusetts seawatch spots, such as Race Point (Cape Cod) and Andrews Point (Cape Ann), enjoyed fine shows on those northeast winds. And when the winds finally shifted to come from the NW on Tuesday morning, First Encounter Beach in Eastham, MA was the place to be, as it so often is as nor'easters pull away.
In addition to the wind-drifted seabirds, fingers were crossed for entrainment of birds from Gulf Stream waters, though that always seemed a low probability. Turns out that mechanism never did materialize.
I had been pretty confident that migrating shorebirds would be downed by this system, so it came as a surprise that this didn't seem to be the case. I assumed that birds would be moving on those NE winds and would fall out of the sky when the rain set in...but there was very little evidence of this! I only got wind of the odd Hudsonian Godwit being reported, but not much else.
While this storm will be best remembered for its Leach's wreck, the other major players were jaegers (all three species), a few South Polar Skuas, shearwaters, Northern Fulmars, Black-legged Kittiwakes, and a few Sabine's Gulls. All species that should be at our latitude at this date. Nothing southern or tropical, outside of I think one Brown Booby, which has become a regular rarity on Cape Cod.
On a more local level, Connecticut was cursed with northeast winds from start to finish, which tends to push birds away from our coast. As a result, seabird sightings were few and far between. But, unlike most nor'easters, we were not entirely left out! A handful of Leach's were seen, one each of Cory's and Great Shearwater, and several Parasitic Jaegers were tallied. That's a solid result for CT!
As for me personally, I decided to stay local. On Friday afternoon, Dave P. and I rode the ferry from New London, CT or Orient Pt, NY, just as the first bands of rain were knocking on our doorstep. While the CT side was quiet (obviously), the Orient Pt area was loaded with birds. A full-on feeding frenzy was happening in the rips of Plum Gut. The jaeger show was fantastic. Our highest single-scan count of Parasitic Jaeger was seven, but there were likely more than that. It was mayhem. The ferry obviously does not stop for birds, and we passed through this one dense flock over just a few very busy minutes. I suppose given these circumstances it is forgivable that we did not identify the dark juvenile Long-tailed Jaeger until after the fact via images (oops!). Four species of shearwater were present in the scrum: Cory's, Scopoli's, Great, and Manx. The only two storm-petrels we had were very clearly Wilson's and not the hoped-for Leach's. The stormies were actually in the Sound itself, north of Great Gull Island. They were happily feeding in the windy conditions; this was nothing compared to the Drake Passage.
 |
| Cory's Shearwater |
 |
| Scopoli's Shearwater |
 |
| Parasitic Jaeger |
 |
| Parasitic Jaeger |
 |
| Long-tailed Jaeger |
 |
| Long-tailed Jaeger |
 |
| Parasitic Jaeger |
 |
| Parasitic Jaeger flock |
 |
| Parasitic Jaeger |
 |
| not sure if this is insane or impressive or both |
 |
| Little Gull Island was looking moody |
My next chance to explore was Sunday morning, when I took watch from Meigs Point in Hammonasset Beach State Park. It was slow out there, though two Parasitic Jaegers, a light morph (subadult?) and a dark juvenile, made it worthwhile.
 |
| light morph Parasitic Jaeger |
On Sunday and Monday I mixed in some shorebirding but didn't turn up anything more interesting than a couple Lesser Black-backed Gulls, which were likely products of the weather to some degree.
I think that about does it! In the end, this storm that was classified by meteorologists as a nor'easter rather than a tropical cyclone indeed delivered birds like a nor'easter usually does, both in mechanism and in species makeup. Every big storm is a learning process, and thanks to the many observers who ventured into the field throughout the region, I think we collectively covered this storm quite well.
- Nick
Comments
Post a Comment