An oil leak in my car prevented me from doing the birding I had planned on Saturday and made me head home instead. On the way I made 7 stops at scrubby places around northern Dryden and teased chickadees in hopes they would bring interesting birds into the sunshine to be photographed. I was moderately successful.
Notable was that I had RED-BREASTED NUTHATCHES at every stop, even one with only a single pine tree in sight. Sparrows were less responsive than I would have thought, but I had Chipping Sparrows in 2 spots, a FIELD SPARROW in one, and White-throated and White-crowned at most. Surprisingly, Song Sparrows were missing from two stops. I saw several Savannah Sparrows at other spots along the way. Ruby-crowned Kinglets were present almost everywhere. I had HERMIT THRUSHES come in at three stops, making their "chuck" alarm note and flicking their wings. The sky was full of Turkey Vultures, although I couldn't detect any obvious southward movement. Most interesting to me were the band of chickadees that decided that the owl that was calling was inside my car. They climbed up in the wheel wells, and one actually went into the car through an open window. Kevin -- 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/ --
