I visited Tappen Beach today, one of my favorite places to bird. Tappen Beach is in Sea Cliff, a mere ten minutes or so from my house. It looks out on an inlet of the Long Island sound. In the winter, they have gulls and sea ducks. In the summer, the Ospreys dive and fish and nest on a cell tower, while the Peregrine Falcons do the same on a disused smokestack. I love birding Tappen Beach.
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Tappen Beach
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On the drive to the beach, we located one of the resident
Peregrine Falcons, crazily stooping at some pigeons. When he tired of that, he went after a
Canada Goose that was at least twice his size. He didn't get it, needless to say.
First thing I saw was some people feeding
Herring and Ring-billed Gulls in the parking lot. They swarmed around their car, sitting on it to the extent that they couldn't get out.
I arrived on the beach, trudged through 2 foot deep snow (I had luckily packed my snow boots), and arrived at the shore. Alas, there were only those Ring-billed and Herring Gulls, some Canada Geese and Mallards, and a few Mute Swans.
Just as I was going to leave, there came a bunch of little black-and-white sea ducks flying low over the water. I chased them, but alas, to no avail. We decided to look for them by car.
So we drove over in the direction that the small, black-and-white ducks had flown. Parking on a side street, we trudged through more snow and finally came to a hot spot. Literally hundreds of birds milled around and did the things birds do. Unfortunately, the only gulls were Herring and Ring-billed, the only geese were Canada. Mallards waddled around and starlings poked in the ground.
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| Herring Gull with food |
The only really "good" bird was a
Killdeer. He ran around, poked his bill in the sand and flew a bit. Alas, we did not get to witness the stunning hunting display where this small bird shoots large mammals with assorted firearms. (Not really).
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| Killdeer |
Moving along a bit, we came upon the birds we had come for: the small black-and-white sea ducks (perhaps we should make that a species). Alas, I had only my binoculars, having left my scope in the car. I had no idea what they were.
We later determined that these were
Common Goldeneyes, my first lifer that day.
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Common Goldeneyes
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| Common Goldeneyes in flight |
The Goldeneyes took off and headed for the other end of the beach. We drove down there. I hopped out of the car, set up my scope, and took off for the beach.
There, as I was struggling to get the Goldeneyes in my scope as they dove, under and up, under and up, two fine birders in my area, Seth Ausubel and Mary Normandia, showed up on the scene. Though I didn't get the Goldeneyes in the scope, Seth was able to point out a Red-necked Grebe and Long-tailed Duck, a beautiful bird that I had longed to see. Then we located a Red-breasted Merganser, another lifer.
This was a fantastic day, what with getting 4 new life birds in one hour! Thanks so much to Seth and Mary for helping us find them and giving us great looks through their scope.
