Hurricane Birds

I was able to get in on the Hurricane Bird fun yesterday after checking on my families homes to ensure there was no damage.  I headed to Squires Pond to check out the bay on the off chance there were some birds (since the South Shore/Ocean was impossible to access unless one headed to points East of Southampton).  To my surprise there were Terns - a lot of Terns - on the shoreline and feeding in the pond.  Gulls were present too and in a far off cedar were several egrets who were roosting away from the wind.

I quickly was able to pick out a Black Tern in full breeding plumage from quite a distance and worked on getting closer to the birds.  Unfortunately there were a few trucks running up and down the beach - and that mixed with the still very strong winds resulted in me losing track of the breeding plumaged black tern.  I did however pick up on some non-breeding plumage and/or juvenile's of the same species.

Over at the Shinnecock Canal (on the Peconic side) there were lots of Terns but didn't pick out anything too unusual.  A couple Royal Terns were hanging on the rocks on the East side and there were more juvenile skimmers (there was one at Squires Pond) were nice to see as well.  No Bridled or Sooty Terns but I'll take two new birds in my "backyard".

Anyone interested in helping me ID other terns in these photos can feel free - I'm no expert on these birds and may have missed one or two...

All in all, I think I had at least 10 Black Terns at Squires Pond, 1 Juvenile Black Skimmer, 1 Laughing Gull and at least 2 Sandwich Terns.  Not bad for a beach that never has more than a couple Least Terns feeding offshore.