Correction on the shorebird list: it should say "Semipalmated Plover - a couple" after Killdeer.
So far I have one volunteer co-teacher next weekend, preferably Sunday again, and one maybe participant. --Dave Nutter On Jul 17, 2016, at 08:28 PM, Dave Nutter <nutter.d...@me.com> wrote: How much interest is there in doing a trip next weekend? Please reply to me ASAP. Thanks to Andrea Van Beusichem and Linda Ziemba at Montezuma NWR, this morning we had a shorebird walk on the dikes at Knox-Marsellus and Puddler Marshes, where the public is otherwise prohibited. With 5 days notice as a single message on CayugaBirds-L, forwarded to Oneidabirds, plus whatever publicity happened at the refuge, we garnered 25 participants, a mix of expert ornithologists with big lens cameras, dedicated experienced amateurs with scopes, and birders of various other levels eager to learn. I want to particularly thank Bob McGuire for helping teach, as well as anyone else who was helping beyond my hearing as we spread out. Next time, if there is interest in a next time, I am thinking of more formally getting any volunteer teachers who attend, such as Bob and myself today, directly grouped with people who want to learn, so that there is no hesitation to ask questions or use teachers' scopes, and I think I can concentrate on more teaching in the future now that I am warmed up for the season. Good shorebird habitat is relatively limited to the north and east sides of each impoundment because drought has lowered the water level, yet there has been enough rain for vegetation to thoroughly cover what in a 'normal' year would have been distant and gradually moving fingers of water and mud. The shorebirds are now closer to the dikes as would be expected a month or two later in the season. We got good scope views without heat shimmer, but the habitat may not last the season here, and I don't know if it will be extensive enough to draw the large numbers of shorebirds when the juveniles and uncommon species would be expected a month from now. (Don't despair: as Pete Saracino wrote, and Linda Ziemba repeated to me this afternoon, the refuge plans to make available as shorebird habitat succession of areas along the Wildlife Drive despite the drought). Another issue is that, between the dike 'road', where we walked and stood, and the water and mud we were looking at, the vegetation was pretty tall, particularly some type of wild carrot, making aiming scopes a bit tricky. I don't know whether or when refuge staff might be able to lower some of this or cut a few windows. Anyway, my thought is to schedule these trips a week at a time rather than commit to a whole season of walks on these dikes, so I want to gauge interest for next week. We took a leisurely 3 hour walk from the East Road overlook along the north side of K-M and around the bend a short distance along the east side of K-M. From that vantage, Puddler seemed not to harbor shorebirds so we didn't go there, nor did there appear to be additional species of shorebirds farther south along the east side of K-M. We saw at least 9 species of shorebirds, with excellent scope views of them all: Killdeer - several Semipalmated Sandpiper - a couple Spotted Sandpiper - several Solitary Sandpipe - (irony alert!) a couple Lesser Yellowlegs - several Least Sandpiper - many Semipalmated Sandpiper - a few Pectoral Sandpiper - 1 (early enough to be labeled rare by eBird but not rare later on) Short-billed Dowitcher - 5 There may also have been a Greater Yellowlegs that I missed, but I did see one later at Eaton Marsh on the Wildlife Drive, so this species is not absent from the area. The rare/early Long-billed Dowitcher identified by experts at a distance recently was not to be found. Other cool birds I recall offhand included: 16 brown Sandhill Cranes several female & or immature Baltimore Orioles a singing Indigo Bunting which provided great views to some folks Caspian Tern adults flying and resting Black Terns flying, both in breeding and non-breeding plumage at least 1 of the 2 recent domestic Graylag Geese raising its periscope from the dense high vegetation a singing Willow Flycatcher conveniently perched in its namesake a ragged molting male Bobolink After the main walk, 7 of us explored the dikes entering from Towpath Road, which is dry but bumpily slow-going. On the open mud near a large cattail stand in the southeast corner of K-M we saw at least 3, maybe 4, immature Virginia Rails, plus another in the channel beside Towpath Road, all of which could be scoped without going past the 'authorized personnel only' signs. These may be some members of the flock of 7 downy black chicks Ann Mitchell and I saw with an adult a few weeks ago. Today we did not see or hear any Least Bittern in this cattail stand even though a bird had been calling there a lot a few weeks ago. Maybe they gave up on that site when the water under the cattails dried up. Another interesting sighting from here was all the distant gulls and shorebirds in the northeast part of K-M flushing due to an aggressively diving raptor which turned out to be a male Northern Harrier, a species that typically cruises benignly over low over marshes. Unsuccessful, he soared high then glided away to the southwest. During a brief glance at the east side of Puddler from the end of Towpath Rd very early this morning I saw a few distant unidentified shorebirds. When we checked them out at mid-day they turned out to be Killdeer, Least Sandpipers, and Least Sandpiper. We only found Great Blue Herons, no Black-crowned Night-Herons (yet?), in the trees and bushes along the outside edge of the Puddler dike. We also added our first Bald Eagle, an immature flying over. The final stop was on South Mays Point Road, looking east/downstream from the bridge, where a very cooperative Red-headed Woodpecker took several flycatching sallies out over the Clyde River from a large dead tree just beyond the big gravel 'Fishing Access' parking lot before disappearing south into the woods where I assume this year's nest tree is located. --Dave Nutter -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basics Rules and Information Subscribe, Configuration and Leave Archives: The Mail Archive Surfbirds BirdingOnThe.Net Please submit your observations to eBird! -- -- 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/ --
