Twick or Tweet...

Tweetie and Sylvester, those lovable cartoon characters came to mind as I sifted through photos and prepared to summarize the afternoon excitement on Long Island. Read on and you will understand why. I was trudging up towards the beach front at Breezy Point in Queens when the phone call came in from my friend, Patricia Lindsay. Pat indicated that she along with Shai Mitra, had found a Common Ground-Dove at Captree State Park in Long Island. Does this sound familiar? Well, it was only this past Wednesday that I had fielded a call from Pat on the Franklin's Gull found at the same location and now it was a Common Ground-Dove. If you are a regular reader or read that report you would know that the Franklin's Gull chase was a successful one. Could I repeat it? There was only one way to find out and so I was running back towards the fisherman's parking lot at Breezy Point from the beach. Giving a few fishermen pause as they saw me hustling along with scope, bins and camera in tow...perhaps they even had a suspicious glance or two.

Bird admirer for all the wrong reasons

Nevertheless, I made it to the lot without any interceptions and then made the mad dash out to the Island. Thankfully, traffic was not too bad and before long, I was pulling into the parking lot at Captree noting all the birder paparazzi with their equipment. I hustled over to Pat's scope even thanking her before getting a view of the Common Ground-Dove.   Yep, it was another successful chase. The bird moved around a bit, but always seemed to return to a spot it favored. It's roving probably stemmed from the presence of a lurking Cat who seemed to be giving it the eye and I hope that this bird remain alert to avoid becoming a causality. Many birders showed up and got on the bird and were still arriving as I left this afternoon. If accepted by NYSARC (New York State Avian Records Committee) this will be a 1st state record. Hopefully, it sticks around for others to see it. Here are some photos of the Common Ground-Dove from Captree Long Island.

Tags: Common Ground-Dove, Captree State Park LI, Bird Watching

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