This afternoon I went looking for a couple of specialty warblers. Pine Warbler has been found by many people many places but not yet by me. I have checked Parkway Place without luck, a considerable hike in an attempt to add it to my Luddite List. Today I drove to Comstock Knoll, but again without luck. I continued to the bowl of Newman Arboretum and hiked to various groves of pines, where I kept finding CHIPPING SPARROWS and (SLATE-COLORED) DARK-EYED JUNCOS. Finally I heard a triller a bit different, more like a short series of whistles than chips, in the old short-needled pines along the top of the bowl parallel to Dryden Road and got a great view of a PINE WARBLER. Another bird which I always like sang from the trees and brush below, a BROWN THRASHER, but it quit and hid when I looked for it.
My next goal was to get a look at the NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH which has been singing east of the Woodleton Boardwalk on the Dryden side of Sapsucker Woods. Like yesterday morning, I heard it but couldn't see it. Deb Lynn came by and told me she'd seen waterthrushes in a pool near the Sherwood Platform and along the pond outlet stream, so I headed north and west. Before I left the forest I found several small birds in the deciduous canopy a PINE WARBLER (presumably a migrant since it wasn't in pines) along with a couple of (MYRTLE) YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS and a RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET. At the Owens Platform I saw more MYRTLES, but no other warblers. The outlet stream wasn't flowing because beavers have succeeded in blocking the outflow, and I saw no birds on the mud. By the Sherwood Platform I heard and saw a couple of RUSTY BLACKBIRDS, but no warblers. But in the southwest corner of the pond by the Charley Harper benches I found another RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET and a couple more MYRTLES, and on a small lichen-covered tree a boldly zebra-striped male BLACK-AND-WHITE WARBLER explored the bark, the first of this species for me this year, and I believe the first report for the basin. --Dave Nutter -- 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/ --
