Hi all, A couple interesting things in Tompkins County recently. Local birder Dan Otis alerted me to the presence of a GREAT HORNED OWL nest on the Newman Municipal Golf Course. The birds are nesting in an old Red-tailed Hawk nest in a tall tree in the middle of the course. It's quite high up and easily visible from a distance, so disturbance of the birds shouldn't be an issue. Livia and I checked it out yesterday and found the best view from Pier Road just after turning right off of Willow Ave. then looking back to the left. An adult was nicely visible sitting high on the nest. I was also able to see the nest, which is fairly large and conspicuous if you have an unobstructed view, from Stewart Park along Fall Creek looking southwest, but this view was more distant and obscured than from Pier Road. Since to my knowledge we have not seen the nest of the Renwick Woods owl family for a couple of years now, it seems highly probably these are the same birds.
This morning I looked around Myers Point for a while. I did not succeed in locating the Tufted Duck (last seen, as far as I know, by Livia and me on Monday morning on the north side of the Salt Point spit). I did find a dull immature MUTE SWAN with 58 Tundra Swans on the spit just east of the private marina. Dabbler numbers were high as well, with some really impressive NORTHERN PINTAIL flocks out in the middle of the lake totaling over 300 birds. Dozens of AMERICAN WIGEON, at least six GREEN-WINGED TEAL, seven WOOD DUCKS in the marina, three WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS, and the usual mix of Aythya (numbers greatly reduced from previous weeks) rounded out the waterfowl mix. An adult LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL was preening with the gull flock off the marina. Monday evening, Livia and I saw two adult Lessers and an adult ICELAND GULL on ice floes off the point. Immature Iceland continue to be seen sporadically at the compost piles as well. -- Jay McGowan Macaulay Library Cornell Lab of Ornithology jw...@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/ --
