Birdwalk Highlights for 11/22: Wolfe's Neck Center, Freeport.

A productive and diverse visit to Wolfe's Neck Center really exemplified the rapidly changing season: fewer migrant landbirds and signficantly more waterbirds.

As always, we began and ended at the cove, where the incoming tide brought more birds to us by the end of the walk. A single GREAT BLUE HERON stood guard the entire time, and at the end of the walk, we spotted a distant HORNED GREBE - the first of the season for many folks. In between, the growing number of waterbirds included a goodly 120 AMERICAN BLACK DUCKS, 60 BUFFLEHEADS, 28 MALLARDS, 20 RING-BILLED GULLS, 10 RED-BREASTED MERGANSERS, 8 COMMON GOLDENEYES, 5 SURF SCOTERS, 4 WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS, and 3 COMMON LOONS.

Landbirds were much fewer, as expected, with only a mere 7 SONG SPARROWS between the two main sparrow-y areas, along with 8 DARK-EYED JUNCOS, 41 AMERICAN GOLDFINCHES, 3 EASTERN BLUEBIRDS, and a mixed species foraging flock of resident woodland birds.

Overhead, however, we did have some "vismig," with a total of 32 AMERICAN ROBINS, 24 RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS, and 4 COMMON GRACKLES. The 8 fly-over HORNED LARKS were seen by many, while the single calling EVENING GROSBEAK and at least 2 RED CROSSBILLS were seen by none! The "best" birds of the day all went overhead, relegated to the netherworlds of "heard-onlies."