Some Great South Bay Broadbill

Steve Sanford

Well-known member
All~

I just got back from a couple of days on Long Island - visiting family and - of course - working on a boat. I visited with this herd of Broadie-beaks on Monday morning.

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About 4000 were snoozing and feeding in the morning light.

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It was a mix of Greaters and Lessers.

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Some were hauled up right on the beach.

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These birds are a bit blurry only because they're so fast. Got to keep that barrel swinging through!

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An alert Lesser.

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I'm calling this one a Lesser. The iridescence can fool the eye. Even though it shows a greenish (and not purplish) gloss, the knot on its head, the narrow bill nail and coarse vermiculation on the back suggest affinis and not marila to my eye.

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This is a pair of Greaters - my favorite species in the webbed world.

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I'm guessing most of these are retired - because of all the napping going on.....

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A nice way to bask in the morning sun.

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All the best,

SJS





 
Nice photos Steve.
I was on a sea trial last week running from Great River out towards New Inlet and saw the sky turn black with thousands of BB when I was off Bayport.
 
Glad to see rafts of BB again. There were large rafts in shinnecock and me cox years ago. Now it's a great day to see a small group. Remember huge rafts in little neck bay.
 
Steve,
Great photos. Do you suppose they migrate down along the coast to L.I.? I have been hunting the Hudson River for over 20 years and I have only seen one good size raft of Bluebills, but not anywhere near those numbers.

Zane
 
Zane,

We get big rafts of them every year along the south shore. Sometime they show up very late in the season if the winter is mild.
 
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SJS
Agree lesser.
All of our bluebills moved out about 2 weeks ago.
I was seeing rafts like that of bluebills, silverbacks and redheads all winter.
Now I'm seeing red breasted mergansers, we never have them here.
 
Good morning, Patrick~

I'm glad you are seeing Red-breasteds - our Shelldrake on Great South Bay. Great birds !

Will we see you carve a few with war-bonnets and all ?

(By "silverbacks" I will presume you a referring to Cans and not adult male Gorillas....)

All the best,

SJS

 
Good morning, Zane~

Historically, I believe our Greater Scaup came to Great South Bay from the Yukon - migrating across Canada and through the Great Lakes. We seem to be watching a resurgence in recent years, especially late winter. Rafts over 20,000 have been observed. I am unaware of any recent banding work here in the east.

It may be that our water quality is improving as a result of the new inlet that opened in Bellport Bay several years ago (Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy?), flushing the Bay more regularly.

All the best,

SJS
 
Great stuff as usual Steve!

Nice to see so many hens in those flocks. Most flocks we see down here during the season seem to be almost all drakes.

You noted that you have seen an increase in scaup numbers the last few years, which is interesting because we have seen just the opposite. The number of scaup wintering in our system seemed to drop to almost zero a few years back, seemed a little better this year. Maybe they shifted east???
 
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