Backyard and Beyond

Snowy Owls aren’t our only Arctic visitors. This is a male, or drake, King Eider (Somateria spectabilis). I saw my first ever earlier this month, when, after the Brooklyn CBC, we all hurried over to Beach 59th St. on the Rockaways. The other day another was spotted off Fort Tilden. This time I had my camera with me when a friend and I greeted the New Year on the Atlantic coast. Extreme telephoto.In full breeding regalia, the orange knob at the base of the bill is pronounced, and spectacular. This is a sea duck, a diver that can go down 80 ft. It’s a gregarious species, gathering in flocks by the thousands in their native waters. Down here, where they are few and far between, they will hang out with other species. The first one I saw was with a flotilla of Black Scoters, this one with Red-breasted Mergansers.

I’m very familiar with the Common Eider (S. mollissima), the male of which has a white back and black-topped head. Females of both species are similar-looking, and thus more of a challenge.

Looking northwest towards Gotham-Metropolis; the birds come cruising along from the right.

It’s no Hawk Mountain or Veracruz, Mexico, where thousands of North America’s Broad-winged hawks squeeze by on their way south, but I’ve never been to those places, and home is where the raptor is. Or at least just passing through, following the coast along the barrier beach of the Rockaways to the south-east.

For just over an hour yesterday morning, some thirty raptors flew by the platform atop the old gun emplacement at Fort Tilden. An average of one every two minutes. We saw: 3 Osprey; 1 Peregrine; 1 (or more) Northern Harrier (this cinnamon-bellied juvenile might have been a local); a bunch of accipiters, mostly Sharp-shinned with a few Cooper’s; and lots of the two little falcon species, Kestrels (mostly) and Merlins. Some cruised near the beach, others over the woods on the bay side, and some right past the platform. Seeing one after another sharpens one’s identification skills, especially in distinguishing the Coopers from the Sharp-shinned and the Merlins from the Kestrels.

Otherwise, Fort Tilden was awash in Northern Flickers and Yellow-rumped warblers. It’s a wonder I wasn’t hit by one.

This White-breasted Nuthatch, meanwhile, paused on the platform to watch us for a change.