On Sunday morning, ten birders joined me for a Cayuga Bird Club group walk around the Cornell Community Gardens on Freese Road.
Among all the ~100+ times I've birded at this site in fall, today's outing towers above all the rest in terms of LINCOLN'S SPARROW encounters. In about an hour, we had about 15 sightings, all in the northern half. The average for me per visit is probably about 1! Getting a precise count poses impossible methodological challenges, but from timing and locations, I weakly infer that we didn't have a lot of repeat sightings. I would add that the ratio of Song Sparrow sightings to Lincoln's sightings seemed much lower than usual. So, if pressed, I would guess that there are at least 8-10 Lincoln's Sparrows in there today. And if one makes the eminently reasonable assumption that our sightings comprise only some fraction of the birds actually present, one could conclude that there are dozens!! We also saw one SWAMP SPARROW, a couple of SAVANNAH SPARROWS, a FIELD SPARROW, several WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS (fine sightings in both the northern half and in the hedgerow at the southern border of the site -- a few sang repeatedly), some WHITE-THROATED SPARROWS, several HOUSE SPARROWS, a COMMON YELLOWTHROAT, a NASHVILLE WARBLER, and an INDIGO BUNTING (several more heard). We also enjoyed watching 25+ Turkey Vultures rising from the Cornell compost area to the south, as well as a PILEATED WOODPECKER and Great Blue Heron passing overhead. I am also pleased to report that recent traffic from walkers and at least one truck has greatly facilitated passage through the weedy corridors among the plots. Thanks to all who joined our group! Thank you, Lincoln's Sparrows! Mark Chao -- 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/ --
