My friend Dan Watkins and I had a nice (but cold!) day of birding
in the basin. We began at Stewart Park and saw a nice raft of
decoys, mainly mallards! The hunters were around on the west
side of the lake. So, most of the gulls, and waterfowl
were on the east side of the park. had the 3 main gull species,
greater black-backed, herring and ring-billed. Did not find
the iceland or lesser black backed today. The gulls were huddled
very close and many were sleeping. Also had numerous common
goldeneyes, 1 hooded merganser, mallards, black ducks,
bufflehead and common mergansers at Stewart. Not much else.
Stopped at Myers Point next and again there was a group
of hunters. Had a few redhead, and many common goldeneyes
but not much else.
After Myer's went to Rafferty Road and struck out
on the short-eared owls. It was midday so I was not too
hopeful anyway. But we got great looks at 3 northern harriers (2
female and 1 male) and a nice look at a light phase rough-legged hawk.
Then we continued north and, like last week, most of the waterfowl
action again was from Aurora north.
There was a huge raft of mostly Athyla species very close to the shore
in Aurora. Most of the birds were redheads in a close, dense
pack. We also found several lesser scaup, a few greater scaup,
a couple ringed necked ducks, several canvasback and a few
american widgeons in this impressive raft. I got a few digiscoped
images... see
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davenicosia/sets/72157625780409046/
>From the Aurora boathouse, there was at least one hundred
common goldeneye's seen. Could not come up with
any Barrow's but would not be surprised if someone eventually finds
one of these guys given the large number of goldeneyes on
the north end of Cayuga Lake. We struck out on the eared
grebe, but did get nice looks at 5 horned grebes.
Next stop was the Factory Street Pond Union Springs and
we did get the screech owl in the box.
>From the North Mill Pond in Union Springs there was a nice
raft of mainly redhead, with several gadwall, american widgeon
bufflehead, ring necked ducks, mallard and black ducks.
Also had a few american coots. These birds were fairly
close and got great looks.
Next stop was Van Dyne Sporer Road and there was very little.
The road was snow covered but not too bad. It is easily done
with a four wheel drive. Only bird of note was a great blue heron in
one of the ditches. He looked cold!
Overall another great day of birding in the basin!
Dave Nicosia
Johnson City NY
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