LOONIES in the boonies

WORFF.....i am mentally exhausted from all that birding excitement today. I have to say the morning did start off rather dull. My energy started off low on this brisk sunday morning and the mundane long island gulls (Herring, Greater Black-back, ring billed) along with the wide array of double crested cormorants were not helping the situation. However, without a doubt my birding zeal emerged with the close up siting of the common loon. Throughout the trip the loons stayed present, some up close, some in the distance and all of them diving. The loon caught my eye and its loony behavior seemed to attract some particularly peculiar species. The next new species which some people enjoyed was the American Coot. As a novice ornithologist i mistook this swimming rail for a real duck. It has an all black body and a completely white bill which apparently looks a lot different from Ducks. The Surf Scoter, however, really caught my eye. Also known at the Skunk head, named after their black bodies with a stripy patch of white on their head. The males bill os large and swollen at the base of the upper bill. It has white, red, and yellow patters on it with a black patch near the base. From a distance however the colorful patterns look solely orange.

Now things just started to get crazy. This medium sized duck appears out of the water and all looks normal except it has this extremely long black tail coming out of its behind. Its peculiar design made it quite a show to see and ironically as everyone (april) shunned me for calling it a "Long-tailed Duck" i turned out to be right!

Other unimportant species: Black-bellied Plover, Red-tailed Hawk(lovely, yet common to our trips), Brown Pelican, Brant (an interested bird in the Goose family), White-breasted Goose which like to blend in with the Canada Goose and American Wigeon (common Duck with white stripe over its head and green patch).

Just kidding, we saw a BROWN PELICAN: the magical bird, the bird of the day, the remarkable, the outstanding and the uncommon bird to long long island, the brown pelican! It took me a considerably long time to identify the pelican blending in amongst all the gulls, but non the less i got to see two brown pelicans. Just looking at the large dark waterbird was sensational, although it was even more impressive when looking at its range. Brown Pelican's are usually found along the ocean shores of the southwestern United States and around a few lakes. The Brown Pelican is unique to all dark pelicans for its habit of plunging from the air into the water to catch sea life. It would have been quite an experience to see it fly, however Doc and PP were not fond of the idea of spooking them. On Long Island Brown Pelican's have only been sited in Montauk because of its abundance of fish, which the Pelican's feed off of.

Lovely trip. We may have not seen that many birds, but you know what they say "QUALITY NOT quantity" and we sure did get some good quality birds.