Hi all, Today morning from 5 to 5.40 am I listened to migrant birds and recorded some of the calls. Based on the calls and the spectrogram, there were several groups of VEERIES that flew overhead. There were also some ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAKS and at least one WOOD THRUSH. I also heard something like clicking of bills, could have been a cuckoo, but did chance to record so cannot confirm.
Local Great Horned Owl between 5.10 5.20 hooted several times. There at least six species of night insects all occupied different frequency levels in the spectrogram. In one species, two or three insects were calling and initially one would start and then second would join in and after few seconds the sounds were matched and sang as one insect but with increased volume! When I was watching the spectrogram at real time I could see how the frequencies joined and separated in real time. About 17 years ago I bought Ziess 10x42 (before that I used Nikon 7X25 and previous to that an 8X32 which had double image, though my brain after some days of use corrected them to a single image) and went to Stewart park hoping that I would be able to see all the birds now better from any distance. Scope was not known to people in India then. I watched the lake and found no birds. Then Kevin McGowan drove in and set up his scope and declared he seeing all three species of Scoters. I was little disappointed that my binoculars were no good to see that far. He let me peek through his scope and I did see all three species of Scoters. Then my goal was to get a scope, which I managed to get one and when I spent evening at May's point watching shore birds, I used to be frustrated with distant birds that other people could pick up with their scope. Yesterday birds were something like 400 m to 1000 m away from observation site (I actually checked using google distance calculator) and everyone is watching Phalaropes, Buff Breasted Sandpiper and I barely could see them in my scope. Again Kevin McGowan mentioned, that with his old scope, which was similar to my current he could not see birds so well, but with current Swaroski he can see things much better. Oh well, but = since last two years I have been thinking I need to get better optics, but recently they seem to have become so very expensive and beyond my reach. I have been digging in my yard to see if someone has buried any treasure, but so far have found none :( But I was musing about how birding and optics have changed. But now I am thinking maybe I should go back bare basics. Just use good old eyes and go closer to see birds! Or look for those birds that are visible! Do we really need to spend so much of money to see birds that far away? Anyway I thought I will share this with others and see what others think. Yesterday, on the way back from an errand in Rochester at the junction of 318 and 414, I saw a huge flock of BROWN-HEAED COWBIRDS. There may have been more than 1000+ birds and flock was almost pure cowbirds only. Also this did not make it to Cayugabirds. To add to Dave Nutter's list of shorebirds at Knox Marcellus, later in the evening while searching for Buff-Breasted, Mike Tetlow found a Golden Plover from East Road. Viewing was much better from East Road at this time, I could actually see RED-NECKED PHALAROPES as red-necked and not just phalaropes, with the same scope. There were also 7 SANDHILL CRANES in the marsh. Meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY http://haribal.org/ http://picasaweb.google.com/ithmoths http://picasaweb.google.com/mharibal http://www.flickr.com/photos/91426...@n00/ -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
