Gary Chapin and I birded Montezuma for half a day today and we had a number of nice birds. We did not have any species that have not been reported in recent days or weeks, but if you would like to hear the details, then feel free to read on.
We started at the Visitor's Center at 7:30am where we spent an hour watching the massive morning flight of icterids and waterfowl. There were at least 10,000 Red-winged Blackbirds, Grackles and Starlings lifting out of the marsh as we arrived, and this was a loud and impressive sight. Six (6) NORTHERN HARRIERS were swirling amongst the blackbirds making for an exciting show. We had continuous flocks of Canada Geese flying south over the refuge, as well as geese lifting off of the Main Pool also heading south. Highlights in these geese flocks were a single GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE, CACKLING GOOSE and one of two hybrid SNOW X CANADA GEESE that we saw today. Hundreds of geese landed in the Visitor Center impoundment, however the three geese of interest continued south out of the refuge. Two COMMON LOONS flew over heading south, and we scoped three BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS in Larues. >From here we headed north to Martens Track where we located at least four (4) NELSON'S SPARROWS. This is a conservative estimate since this was the high count that we had in view simultaneously. I posted a NELSON'S SPARROW photo at my Flickr site at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/brad_carlson/ We had one male RING-NECKED PHEASANT here and four (4) SANDHILL CRANES flew over heading south. Gary had an AMERICAN TREE SPARROW on the road just before the parking lot, while I was photographing the Nelson's Sparrows. A few AMERICAN PIPITS flew overhead here, and we had a couple overhead at most stops throughout the day. There were seven (7) TRUMPETER SWANS (4 adult and 3 immature) on the north side of Savannah Spring Lake Road east of Rt. 89. At Puddler's Marsh we had the continuing AMERICAN AVOCET, along with three DUNLIN, and a handful of GREATER and LESSER YELLOWLEGS. One BALD EAGLE and a couple of dozen TREE SWALLOWS were flying overhead. We only spent a few minutes at May's Point Pool where we had our second SNOW X CANADA GOOSE hybrid of the day. This goose had much less white on the front and underside of it than the one we observed flying over the Visitor's Center in the early morning. One LONG-BILLED DOWITCHER and numerous YELLOWLEGS were foraging amongst the waterfowl. There was one BALD EAGLE perched here, as well as another overhead. We left Mays Point after a few minutes because we heard that a Hudsonian Godwit had arrived at the Visitors Center. We headed over to the Visitor Center, and were able to relocate the HUDSONIAN GODWIT foraging in the center of impoundment. We also relocated what we presume was the first SNOW X CANADA GOOSE hybrid that we originally saw fly over in the morning. The hybrid goose was resting with thousands of Canada Geese in the impoundment. This hybrid had a white head, neck breast and belly, and a mantle with similar plumage as a Canada Goose. All in all, a beautiful Fall day to be out in the field. Regards, -Brad Carlson Honeoye Falls, NY bradcarls...@hotmail.com -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
