I headed out for the Loon and stopped at Cass Park for the GREAT-HORNED OWL.. I parked in the first lost, and ended up walking about halfway up the walk scanning the tall trees at Newman (cause I forgot the excellent directions someone else provided). When I spotted it, it was really obvious, big nest, high in a tall tree, and I was almost at right angle looking across the Inlet. Good viewing in mid-morning sun. Two pretty big white fluffy owlets were bobbing their heads from under mom who watched over them. (Not sure if there were any more.)
Don Timmons and I met up at Treman Marina for the RED-THROATED LOON which was in the Inlet by the boat canal at first but during dives made its way further away from us, so we both drove to the dog park and walked in. Along the way, Dave Nutter chatted with us, pointing out 3 OSPREY on the wing and 1 PEREGRINE FALCON higher still. Don and I refound the Loon at close and excellent viewing distance. While the crews were passing it and over it (during dives), the Loon seemed unperturbed by the boats, but some of its dives were 50’ long, so it was fun to try to keep up with it. We walked to Hog Hole, spotted a few more things along the way, Song Sparrows, Redheads, Common and Hooded Mergansers, I had a Greater Scaup M and ‘harem’ but it disappeared before I could show Don, several AMERICAN BLACK DUCKs that Dave had mentioned as well. One of the OSPREY spent time on the nest as well. We also chased down the source of a weird sound that we both thought at first sounded amphibian-like, then too random, but still loud enough to get one’s attention. I finally localized it to two of the tall grass (phragmite?) stems rubbing on each other like a cricket leg on abdomen or a fraying bow on a big string. We parted and I had no special luck at Stevenson Road or Mt Pleasant nor did I relocate Meena’s Shrike though I did have a good look at both a RED-TAILED HAWK and AMERICAN KESTREL on the airport fence (some distance from each other), and at least 2 more Red-tails soaring over Freese Rd. but no interesting sparrows at the gardens. I did a turn around Severinghaus Trail at Sapsucker Woods. First: the trail is in rough condition: icy and hard to negotiate even with a trekking pole, plus 2 trees down across the trail, plus Dayhoff Boardwalk is almost as bad this year (falling into a weird fun-house curve) as Woodleton was before the Boy Scouts fixed it last year. I will let Jeff, the building manager, know all this tomorrow. BUT, it was worth the trip as I startled a WINTER WREN who flew to a fallen log about 30’ away and did rhythmic squat thrusts while making alarm calls at me for a couple of minutes, moving to other locations in a partial circle while I stood still. This looked a lot like territorial defense, so when the trail gets more navigable this might be a good spot to visit for a WIWR nest site or possible song. This was near the SW end of Dayhoff near the West Trail fork. When I got home, my first of yard-year GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET showed up. Cheers, ChrisP ______________________ Chris Pelkie Information/Data Manager; IT Support Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road Ithaca, NY 14850 -- 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/ --
