Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Country Island 2013 Bird List

This season, Charmaine, Megan, Jess and I beat the Country Island birding record (Our goal from Day One) with a whopping ONE HUNDRED TWENTY THREE BIRDS! Thats right 1-2-3, 123!!!

To see where CI is, and what it's about click here:

Anyways, we beat the previous record of 94 in 2012, and 83 in 2011 (The first year I was on CI!)!! 

Some pretty good birds are seen every year, including some pretty big Maritime rarities:
European Golden plover
Red-Billed Tropicbird
Sooty Tern
Yellow-Throated Warbler
Yellow-Crowned Night Heron

We didn't see any of those this year....

Going off of the top of my head, I can remember 121 of them, and will update the blog when I remember the other two!

Now, I personally missed out on some pretty good birds this year too:
1. Cory's Shearwater - Life Bird


This is the only shot I got of a Cory's Shearwater this summer...

2. Sabine's Gull - Life Bird
3. Manx Shearwater - Life Bird
4. Pectoral Sandpiper
5. White-rumped Sandpiper
6. Dovekie

This is my best shot of a Dovekie... from back in 2011.


But, I really can't complain! Here is what I did see!:
* Denotes Photographed
Bold means life bird

7. Canada Goose* 8. American Wigeon* 9. American Black Duck* 10. Mallard* 11. Blue-winged Teal* 12. Green-winged Teal* 13. Common Eider*


14. Harlequin Duck*
15. Surf Scoter* 16. Black Scoter* 17. Red-breasted Merganser* 18. Red-throated Loon* 19. Common Loon* 20. Sooty Shearwater*
21. Leach's Storm-Petrel*
22. Northern Gannet*
23. Double-crested Cormorant
24. Great Cormorant*

25. Great Blue Heron* 26. Osprey* 27. Northern Harrier* 28. Bald Eagle* 29. Black-bellied Plover*
30. Semipalmated Plover* 31. Spotted Sandpiper*

32. Greater Yellowlegs* 33. Willet* 34. Lesser Yellowlegs* 35. Whimbrel* 36. Ruddy Turnstone*


37. Red Knot*
38. Sanderling* 39. Semipalmated Sandpiper* 40. Least Sandpiper*


41. Purple Sandpiper*
42. Short-billed Dowitcher* 43. Wilson's Phalarope*
44. Black-legged Kittiwake*


45. Bonaparte's Gull* 46. Laughing Gull*
47. Ring-billed Gull* 48. Herring Gull* 49. Iceland Gull* 50. Great Black-backed Gull*
51. Black Tern*
52. Roseate Tern* 53. Common Tern* 54. Arctic Tern* 55. Parasitic Jaeger* 56. Thick-billed Murre*
57. Razorbill*

58. Black Guillemot* 59. Atlantic Puffin*


60. Common Nighthawk 61. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker*
62. Northern Flicker 63. Merlin*
64. Olive-sided Flycatcher* 65. Eastern Wood-Pewee* 66. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher*

67. Alder Flycatcher 68. Eastern Phoebe* 69. Eastern Kingbird* 70. Blue-headed Vireo* 71. Warbling Vireo*

72. Red-eyed Vireo*
73. American Crow* 74. Common Raven 75. Purple Martin*


76. Tree Swallow*
77. Barn Swallow* 78. Red-breasted Nuthatch 79. Brown Creeper* 80. Golden-crowned Kinglet* 81. Ruby-crowned Kinglet* 82. Swainson's Thrush*
83. Hermit Thrush*
84. American Robin*
85. Gray Catbird* 86. Northern Mockingbird* 87. European Starling* 88. American Pipit*
89. Cedar Waxwing* 90. Ovenbird*

91. Northern Waterthrush*



92. Black-and-white Warbler*
93. Mourning Warbler*
94. Common Yellowthroat*
95. American Redstart* 96. Cape May Warbler*
97. Northern Parula* 98. Magnolia Warbler* 99. Blackburnian Warbler 100. Yellow Warbler* 101. Chestnut-sided Warbler* 102. Blackpoll Warbler*
103. Black-throated Blue Warbler*
104. Palm Warbler* 105. Yellow-rumped Warbler* 106. Black-throated Green Warbler* 107. Canada Warbler*
108. Wilson's Warbler* 109. American Tree Sparrow* 110. Savannah Sparrow* 111. Song Sparrow* 112. Lincoln's Sparrow*
113. White-throated Sparrow* 114. Dark-eyed Junco 115. Rose-breasted Grosbeak 116. Rusty Blackbird*
117. Purple Finch* 118. Pine Siskin* 119. American Goldfinch*
120: Evening Grosbeak

Its quite likely that one of the Epindonax Species was saw was a Least Flycatcher, but we didn't here it's call.

We had one unidentified Owl Species

Also, one unidentified Cuckoo species*. A Cuckoo would be a life bird from me. My initial reaction was a black billed, but the girls that were there were leaning more towards yellow-billed. I had thought that I noticed a lot of black on the forehead area, but was also too busy trying to snap a photo. Needless to say, we were not able to track down the bird.



Hows that for a set pictures! Next blog will be of the Common/Arctic/Roseate Terns!! Got lots of photos of them!!