Welcome to new TASLers Diana Beaudoin, Christine Jellow and Mark Keilp. All helped in Winthrop, with Mark walking the perimeter walk around Deer Island. Here is a photo of the entire Winthrop crew.
Also welcome to old friend and new TASLer Dan Furbish and his friend Stephanie Ellis. See Dan's comments below. (He always has plenty.)
Here are selected comments from reporters:
From Dan Furbish in Squantum, 1/12
I was holding off on posting this, but I haven't heard from the powers to
be, so I'll tell the tale.
This past Sunday I was a participant on the January 9th 2005 TASL count. I have never participated before—I don't know why, it was GREAT FUN and we had a very interesting look at Boston Harbor in the winter.
While our team was on Long Island, we looked across the harbor towards the Deer Island treatment plant. We counted scoter sp., eider and loons etc. We were instructed not to look beyond the ½ way mark of the bay as not to double count the birds. That's understandable.
But I spotted a large falcon on the digester eggs of the Deer Island sewage treatment plant (an exception to the previous rule : ). Team members with Leica and Swarovski big guns ooohed and ahhed over this large falcon.
What I saw was a falcon with broad shoulders and a dark back—dark overall. When it turned its head it showed a white throat. It was standing on the top rail of a 3-rail railing with lightning rods around it. Though the tail was below the railing, the overall length of the falcon was about the same as the lightning rods.
An observer at Deer Island reported seeing a Peregrine Falcon atop the digester that day. But confirmation hasn't been made as of this minute.
A very interesting thing that stands out in my mind is that the big falcon we saw had wings that were only 2/3 of the way to the end of the tail. I even mentioned that day, that the wings on the standing falcon were about 2½ inches shy of the end of the tail.
Food for thought......................................... !
[One of the field marks for distinguishing Peregrine from Gyrfalcon is tail length: Peregrine's is noticeably short, specially noticeable in flight. Gyr's is quite long, specially noticeable when perched, when it sticks out way past the tail. -sz]
I responded on 1/13
Dan, we complain about it a lot, but it's a good thing Craig Jackson spends a long time looking at birds. I grilled him thoroughly about the falcon the Deer Is group saw on Sunday on one of the eggs. Here are his observations:
So you could not have seen that bird at that time. Whatever you saw probably was a different bird. Keep your ears open.
Later on:
I spoke with Susannah Corona, who was also on Deer Is. She said that the bird had been sitting facing southeast, so it is possible that was visible from Long Island. Nevertheless, Craig's careful observation and description makes it unlikely that that bird was anything but a Peregrine.
From Andrew Joslin, Hough's Neck, 1/13
Nothing exciting to report except we had a close encounter with the
Squantum TASL team. Upon arriving at HN0 (The Pipe) at Wollaston Beach we
noticed the Squantum team on our side of the pipe! Well, cool heads
prevailed and there were no fisticuffs. We realized that they were on to a
group of shorebirds practically under our feet. Dave Lange approached and
explained that they'd found a Ruddy Turnstone among 50+ Sanderlings. Good
spot by the Squantum team, we might have missed it in the crowd.
Bob Mayer snapped an excellent photo of the turnstone, looking good on a chunk of submerged ice.
Note: We found a single Greater Scaup in Town River Bay (HN 16) between Weymouth and Quincy. If Maury reported the same from the Weymouth side then -1.
Comments compiled by
Soheil Zendeh
last updated: 2005.01.26
url: http://www.gis.net/~szendeh/tasl.jan.05.notes.htm