Queens Big Sit!!!!
New York, NY
Sunday 9 October 2022
62 °F
Today was the best birding I have done since Idaho this August — a day I had been looking forward to all semester. Corey Finger generously organizes this annual outing where Queens-county regular birders sit on top of the Battery Harris observation platform to observe migrating songbirds, seabirds, and raptors in a day-long stationary big day! Corey got there around 5:30am but due to my two-hour commute, I didn’t arrive until almost 7am and therefore missed his first species of the day: Great Horned Owl! To read the full trip report with bird photos, check out my eBird list from all day at the platform here — a whopping 87 species which is incredible for october in one spot! https://ebird.org/checklist/S120263212
And I will include my non-bird photos here illustrating our wonderful, beautiful day of birding:
The only bird species I couldn’t “count” for my day list that I got today was these two SAVANNAH SPARROWS on the way out since I saw them away from the viewing platform. Count circle rules dictate that all species must be identified from the official count circle itself! (regardless of how far, as you can see from my photos, some birds were DISTANT, with us even identifying a few all the way across the bay in Brooklyn!).
It was an AMAZING day of over 7,000 individual birds and 87 species! Bird-of-the-day to the Common Loons with runner-up to the record-breaking Common Nighthawk! Stay tuned: week from monday, I will be on my first NEW YORK PELAGIC!
Happy birding,
Henry
World Life List: 1139 Species
What a beautiful day for you, Henry! Thanks for sharing these wonderful pictures and information.
by Barbara Mays