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Northern Shrike has been on my target list for a little over a year. It’s not a common bird around New York City, but it does show up regularly in early winter; and when it does it often sticks around one spot for a week or more at a time. However I’ve never before made the effort to chase it, so it doesn’t qualify as a nemesis bird. Nonetheless it was a bit galling when Steve Nanz and the Brooklyn Bird Club found one last week at Jones Beach State Park on a trip I skipped to go to the PDN Photo Expo. Fortunately the bird hung around, probably feeding on Yellow-rumped Warblers and other small birds, and was still near the Theodore Roosevelt Nature Center yesterday where Peter Dorosh, Mary Jo Eyster and myself relocated it yesterday:

We also tried for the Western Kingbird and Common Ground Dove that have been at the eastern end of the island at Captree State Park all week. However we whiffed on those, even though both birds were seen by other people at various times throughout the day. Still I’ve seen both of those in California, so just a minor loss for my state list. Overall, it was a very good day. Our total species count was around 56:

1. Brant
2. Canada Goose
3. Mute Swan
4. American Black Duck
5. Surf Scoter
6. Black Scoter
7. Red-breasted Merganser
8. Common Loon
9. Northern Gannet
10. Double-crested Cormorant
11. Great Blue Heron
12. Northern Harrier
13. Sharp-shinned Hawk
14. Cooper’s Hawk
15. American Kestrel
16. Peregrine Falcon
17. Black-bellied Plover
18. American Oystercatcher
19. Greater Yellowlegs
20. Marbled Godwit
21. Sanderling
22. Dunlin
23. Laughing Gull
24. Ring-billed Gull
25. Herring Gull
26. Great Black-backed Gull
27. Royal Tern
28. Rock Pigeon
29. Mourning Dove
30. Northern Flicker
31. Eastern Phoebe
32. Northern Shrike
33. American Crow
34. Horned Lark
35. Tree Swallow
36. Golden-crowned Kinglet
37. Hermit Thrush
38. American Robin
39. Gray Catbird
40. Northern Mockingbird
41. European Starling
42. Yellow-rumped Warbler
43. Chipping Sparrow
44. Lark Sparrow
45. Savannah Sparrow
46. Song Sparrow
47. Swamp Sparrow
48. White-throated Sparrow
49. White-crowned Sparrow
50. Dark-eyed Junco
51. Northern Cardinal
52. Boat-tailed Grackle
53. House Finch
54. American Goldfinch
55. House Sparrow

There was also an American Bittern I missed.

The Shrike was the only life bird, but I did get two new birds for Suffolk County (Boat-tailed Grackle and Peregrine Falcon) and 12 new species for Nassau County. That moves Nassau up to sixth place on my county list, just ahead of Orleans Parish. Orange County, California, is still comfortably in front with 242 species.

• Orange, California 242
• Kings, New York 200
• Queens, New York 192
• Santa Clara, California
• Suffolk, New York 124
• Nassau, New York 115
• Orleans, Louisiana 114
• Monmouth, New Jersey 109
• New York, New York 103
• Richmond, New York 101
• Los Angeles, California 95
• Westchester, New York 83
• Hudson, New Jersey 68
• Somerset, New Jersey 68
• Imperial, California 68
• Bergen, New Jersey 67
• Passaic, New Jersey 66
• San Francisco, California 65
• San Diego, California 63
• Jefferson, Louisiana 58
• Sussex, New Jersey 57
• Washington, Maine 53
• San Bernardino, California 53
• Penobscot, Maine 51
• San Mateo, California 50
• Rockland, New York 49
• Riverside, California 48
• Bronx, New York 42
• Kern, California 37
• Santa Cruz, California 37
• Cook, Illinois 36
• Morris, New Jersey 33
• Hancock, Maine 32
• Middlesex, New Jersey 31
• St. Tammany, Louisiana 26
• Ocean, New Jersey 23
• Orange, New York 18
• Alameda, California 17
• Hunterdon, New Jersey 4