12/7/13 Long Lake (Hamilton Co.)
This morning, over the din of a couple hundred American Goldfinches amplified over our baby monitor (that we use in winter to bring in the outdoor sounds), I heard a Red Crossbill calling! I raced for binoculars and went outside - the bird continued to call from the forest in front of our home (maybe curious about what all the goldfinches were up to) and changed trees several times, but I couldn't spot it. I would say it spent several minutes calling near our home before flying toward the lake. It was wonderful to hear and I hope it is the start of more crossbills moving back in. I am fairly certain it was a type-2 Red Crossbill (as certain as you can be without a recording for analysis anyway). 12/6/13 St. Lawrence Valley car-birding trip I met Mary Beth Warburton and Eileen Wheeler at dawn in Potsdam yesterday. On my nocturnal drive from Long Lake in an ice and snow storm, a plow truck in front of me flushed a Snowy Owl that flew across the road in front of my car. This would be the first of 5 Snowy Owls found yesterday! That owl was found in Franklin Co. Another Snowy Owl was found in St. Lawrence Co. and 3 more were found in Jefferson Co. (Just a note to Northern NY Birds list serve members who are not members of NYS Birds - the NYS Birds list moderator requested that list members not report detailed owl locations - so I am just listing the county level info.) I suspect the owl that flew in front of my car was hunting near the road. Three of the owls we observed (during daylight hours) appeared to be roosting, occasionally looking around, but generally quite still. The last owl we found just before sunset and it was actively hunting - it was beautiful to observe! We were a great distance away from all the owls - I used my scope with the iPhone attachment - both zoomed all the way to photograph 4 of the 5 Snowy Owls found yesterday. I posted one photo to my Facebook page listed below. Here are some of the other species found: Tundra Swan - over 200! Eileen counted 117 in a bay off Point Peninsula, and then we drove around to a section of the bay blocked from our view that had just as many more Tundra Swans! Gadwall - many Amer. Black Duck Mallard Greater Scaup Scaup sp. - huge raft too far out to id Long-tailed Duck - over 200 Common Goldeneye Hooded Merganser Common Merganser Red-breasted Merganser Wild Turkey Great Blue Heron - 2 Northern Harrier - 1 male Red-tailed Hawk - 3 Rough-legged Hawk - 5 (all light morphs) Amer. Kestrel - 6 Bonaparte's Gull - 1 Great Black-backed Gull - many Snowy Owl - 5 Long-eared Owl - 1 dead owl; This owl was caught in a barbed wire fence and must have had a very slow, painful death - it was an awful sight. (Jefferson Co.) Short-eared Owl - 2 observed hunting and interacting at dusk (Jefferson Co.) Belted Kingfisher - 1 Snow Bunting - ~68 (3 groups of 3, 5, and ~60 - this flock was a flyby) House Finch - 1 female at a feeder location in Jefferson Co. It was a fun day with great company birding a spectacular area! Joan Collins Long Lake, NY (315) 244-7127 cell (518) 624-5528 home http://www.adirondackavianexpeditions.com/ <http://www.adirondackavianexpeditions.com/> http://www.facebook.com/AdirondackAvian <http://www.facebook.com/AdirondackAvian> -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
