Hi all, Around 11.00 am we saw a duck in the bay north of Long Point State Park in a very windy conditions.
It was a diver and often dived and stayed under water long time came up far away from where it dove. General description is as follows: Overall, uniform light brown back and head was darker brown, at least head was darker than the body. Initially, I thought it was a female golden-eye. But as others and I got better of it and description of it this is what we saw. Had a yellowish broad beak, shape of the was sloping and not a very sharp rounded head as of golden-eye. Had some white near the cheek and on front part of the body. Very active and dove often. With elimination of other species Donna suggested why not King Eider first year male. I had not even thought of that. I looked up Peterson and Crossley's and Sibely's. To me bird was a hybrid of Crossley and Sibely guides. Forehead was more sloping as in Crossely's and other colors were more like Sibley's. After discussion I wanted to look at the bird in more details. I scanned that locality but did not see the bird again. By then it was getting very nasty and windy people from my group wanted to get back into the car and the bird was also not in sight. So we left the location. The exact location was from the LP SP if you look north where the land juts out into the lake the bird was in front of the last dock and behind it were many Buffleheads. The bird in question was almost twice the size of bufflehead. I am leaning more towards first year King Eider. Tomorrow many of you are heading along the lake so keep your eyes open. Also there is a bird along Long Point State park road off of 90 somewhere near the quarry, which sounds like Carolina Wren, but I think three years ago when I tracked down this sound it turned out to be a Tufted Titmouse. I have been hearing this call for three years. So if you hear it, try to to locate the bird so we can be sure of its identity. There is one tufted titmouse around Bebee lake, behind Mann Library, which sounds like "Teacher teach" and he sounds very mcuh like a oriole if you hear him in oriole season. But I have heard him in winter and spring too. Tufted Titmouse make all kinds of sounds. We had 69 specie of birds or can say almost 70 if we count Carolina Wren! Looking forward to tomoorw! Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 http://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.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/ --
