Birds All the Time

    Humid air with temps in upper 80s . Billowing cumulonimbus loomed in the north/northeast sky. A steady southeast breeze pushed in from the southeast. In the four hours we were on the water, the naturalist crew counted 7 individual humpback whales.       On the way out of Jamaica Bay we saw a few terns and cormorants decorating each buoy and one butterfly flying. The beaches of Breezy Point were crowded with great black-backed gulls. Where the bay and ocean converged there were mostly laughing gulls, one or two ring-billed and one herring gull.      On the ocean, heading south along the Jersey shore, a few barn swallows flew around the boat and one warbler-sized bird flew by, bouncing over the bow.      Out in the ocean  we saw mostly great black-backed gulls. Dozens of common terns were plunge diving into the shadowy baitfish bowls that flickered on the surface with hopping fish. The baitfish lured two osprey which hovered for a bit out in the ocean. We saw one least tern as we app