I made a morning trip up to Montezuma today, arriving about 7:30 after looking unsuccessfully for Short-eared Owls up the east side of the lake at dawn. Although the very large concentrations of waterfowl have moved on, there were some impressive numbers of a few species, as noted by Dave Nicosia and others. These included about 1400 RING-NECKED DUCKS at on the Main Pool and Tschache Pool, 1300+ CANVASBACK at various places, and 1200 LESSER SCAUP at the far north end of Cayuga Lake.
Non-waterfowl highlights included a 2nd-cycle LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL along the Wildlife Drive, adult NORTHERN SHRIKE hunting below the tower at Tschache Pool, 2 EASTERN MEADOWLARKS and a singing RUSTY BLACKBIRD also at Tschache, and a bright, fresh-plumaged FIELD SPARROW along Towpath Rd. KEN Ken Rosenberg Conservation Science Program Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd. Ithaca, NY 14850 (wk) 607-254-2412 (cell) 607-342-4594 k...@cornell.edu -- 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/ --