Oystercatchers, Piping Plovers and Shark-eating Gulls on the Beaches - June 2026

 

One of my favorite summer activities is taking the subway, bus or ferry to the beach along what one of my friends calls the ‘Queens Riviera’. The long central expanse of Rockaway Beach is under NYC Parks jurisdiction, while towards the west Jacob Riis Park and Fort Tilden are within the federal Gateway National Recreational Area. Towards Far Rockaway, NYC Parks has created the relatively new Arverne East Nature Preserve. 

Each of these areas now marks off certain areas to provide protection for nesting shorebirds. Members of the NYC Bird Alliance and the NYC Plover Project assist with these protection activities, monitoring the nests and educating residents and visitors about the importance of maintaining this habitat for vulnerable species. nycbirdalliance.org. nycploverproject.org

One a wide swath on bare sand by Riis Park, tiny lean-tos provide shade for American Oystercatchers, which just scrape out an indentation in the hot sand as a space to lay their eggs. The hatched chicks seem to be grateful for the shelter. Over at the adjacent Fort Tilden beach, the oystercatchers can catch a little natural shade among the dune grasses.

The oystercatcher parents take turns gathering food, mostly crustaceans from the water’s edge, and bringing snacks back to the young ones. 

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The tiny piping plovers hide their nests up among the grasses in the dunes, and are usually only visible when they come to the shoreline for small crustaceans, insects and worms.  

The piping plover chicks, however, don’t get the same food service as the baby oystercatchers. As soon as they hatch, they have to forage for their own food down along the water’s edge. That’s why closing the beach area between the nests and the shoreline is so important. They are practically invisible as they run back and forth. 

Down by Arverne, the gulls were dominating the fenced off stretch of protected beach, along with a few oystercatchers coming down from nests up in the dune grasses. 

The big excitement in the adjacent unrestricted part of the beach involved fishermen catching small sharks called Smooth Dogfish. 

They generally are about three feet long and have small flat teeth for grinding up crustaceans and small fish. They are not endangered and the fishermen take home the larger ones to eat. Some smaller ones were left on the beach.  

Someone had cut off a dogfish head and left it on the beach near the gulls. A juvenile Great Black-backed Gull spent a lot of time picking at it, despite its forbidding appearance.  

I felt a bit sad about the dogfish, even though the gulls and the fishermen did get to eat.  

Tiny Sunset Cove Park on Broad Channel in Jamaica Bay Has Lots of Birds - June 2026

View of lower Manhattan from Sunset Cove

I was looking for horseshoe crabs in early June out at the end of the Broad Channel island. Unfortunately they were pretty much done making eggs and mating.  

But nearby I discovered the boardwalk and birdwatching platform along the shoreline at Sunset Cove.    

Sunset Cove boardwalk and platform

I learned that in 2019, following damage from Hurricane Sandy, NYC Parks restored this area of salt marsh at Sunset Cove Park to provide better public water access as well as future storm protection. Two years ago, a raised boardwalk was built through the wetland, which ends in the shaded platform, which is also used as an outdoor classroom.  

The first thing I noticed was a constructed platform for an osprey nest, with an osprey in it. I didn’t see any chicks though. 

The platform was equipped with viewing equipment for a closer look at the ospreys,  and the overall scene.

The parents were busy catching fish for themselves.

Nearby a group of terns were also fishing, which appeared to be Forster’s Terns, rather than the Common Terns I see more often around New York harbor.  

Double-crested Cormorants lounged on the posts along the shoreline drying their wings when they weren’t diving for fish. One looked at me and seemed like it was wearing a Halloween mask.

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  A Laughing Gull joined them but was not amused.

Much smaller Tree Swallows also perched on the posts and then flew out over the water. They  were chasing after insects rather than fish. 

   

An Oystercatcher was walking around on the sandy area of the wetlands and I wondered if there was a nest hidden in the grasses. 

Great Egrets flew over from to explore the wetland area. 

As well as a Snowy Egret showing off its bright yellow feet. 

A yellow-eyed grackle flew out over the bay and I was surprised to see it was a Boat-tailed Grackle. Its tail was longer and had a different sideways shape compared to the Common Grackles I see in the Manhattan parks. Later it returned to forage in the wetlands.

  

A Yellow-crowned Night Heron was looking for crustaceans along the edge of the water.

On the other side of the boardwalk, a Black-crowned Night Heron was doing the same. 

At some point it must have gotten too close to a Red-winged Blackbird’s nest, because they came out and harassed it. 

The blackbird nest could have been hidden down low among the reeds and grasses. 

The most unusual bird I saw in the wetlands area was a Clapper Rail. These birds usually stay hidden, though they make a big racket with their calls. I had never seen one in the New York area before. 

It is not too hard to get to Broad Channel by the A train and then the bus along Cross-bay Boulevard, so I will check back later in the summer to see what other birds come by.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Start of Summer at The Battery

 

Most of the migratory warblers have moved on to their nesting grounds up north, the resident 

birds at The Battery are settling in for the summer.  

Astoria, the wild turkey, recently showed off her dance steps in an impromptu performance 

on the gate to the playground.

While a Northern Mockingbird sang along nearby.

An American Robin stopped to listen, then went back to foraging on the ground for bugs.

Baby robins were waiting for food in a nest in The Battery’s woodland area.

 

                               

And along the back wall of the park, a pair of Northern Cardinals were going in and out of a corner with dense foliage. Possibly a nest? It seemed like the female cardinal came out to tell us off. 

                      

Other young birds were already emerging from their nests. Including a Mourning Dove near the maintenance area.

            

And a baby European Starling over by the back of the park near the Staten Island Ferry.

The baby starling was being watched over by one of the parents. 

                   

There seemed to be a family of Gray Catbirds behind the playground, with young ones fluttering around then disappearing behind the leaves.

Down by the water a handsome male Mallard duck was just lounging around by himself. Mallard females usually nest up along the Hudson River at the little pond in Battery Park City, but the males are only involved in the mating, and don’t help with raising the ducklings.  

                           

Sometimes Fish Crows will nest in the pine trees at The Battery, but this crow was just surveying the harbor from the flagpole by the Coast Guard building. So maybe an American Crow feeling patriotic.