Saturday, February 21, 2009

A water taxi drive around NY harbor and a stop at Forest Park...

Today, I assisted on an NYC Audubon cruise out in the New York Harbor in search of winter water birds and seals. Our group consisting of over 50 attendees boarded a NYC water taxi at pier 17 (South Street Seaport) around 11:15 for the two hours trip. We saw many winter birds including, Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, Greater Black-backed Gull, Red-breasted Merganser, American Black Duck, Greater Scaup, Bufflehead, Long-tailed Duck, Double-crested Cormorant, Great Cormorant, Red-throated Loon, American Wigeon, Mallard and Purple Sandpiper for a total of 14 species. In addition, we also saw one Harbor Seal around Swinburne and Hoffman Islands.

Following the cruise, I headed back to Queens and stopped off at Forest Park (waterhole), to see if I would be lucky enough to get photos of the Common Redpoll, that I had found last week. I had nice looks of several species, including Pine Siskin and American Goldfinch, but no sign of the Redpoll. I did not spend a long time at the waterhole, as the light was fading and so, I will have to try another day. Share with SociBook.com Bookmark and Share

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