To celebrate the start of the Christmas Bird Count season, I spent the day today (14 Dec 2020) birding at various spots in the Montezuma CBC circle. I was joined at different times by Tim Lenz, Jay McGowan, and Drew Weber for socially-distanced birding. In a testament to the incredible birding opportunities in the area, we collectively tallied just over 14,000 individuals of 67 species.
Tim and I started the morning at Cayuga Lake State Park (https://ebird.org/atlasny/checklist/S77470419), where we found 14 species of waterfowl. Tim also picked out 15 Bonaparte's Gulls, which were a nice surprise. From there, Tim headed to the NYS Chiropractic College, where he had 650 Snow Geese, a Northern Mockingbird, and an American Kestrel. I drove up Lower Lake Road, where I came across a tight flock of 84 Ruddy Ducks. After that, I headed up to the western side of Howland Island (https://ebird.org/atlasny/checklist/S77478312), where I spent a few hours walking around on the trails. It was a woodpecker wonderland there! I observed all six species of regular woodpeckers (including an uncommon-in-winter Yellow-bellied Sapsucker) with Hairy Woodpecker and Northern Flicker particularly vocal and conspicuous. At this point in the day, it felt almost balmy, so seeing five Yellow-rumped Warblers, two Belted Kingfishers, Great Blue Heron, and a Winter Wren fit in with the warmish weather. >From there, I made my way to the Montezuma NWR Visitors Center >(https://ebird.org/checklist/S77481467), where I met up with Jay and Drew. The >highlights there were the large numbers of waterfowl visible on the Main Pool >(with the help of the scope), and the ~50 Sandhill Cranes in the pool right at >the Visitors Center. At that point the weather started to get colder, and it started to really feel like winter. But we continued on to check several popular spots in the greater Montezuma area, including East Road/Knox-Marcellus (234 Sandhill Cranes, 145 American Robins, and a late Savannah Sparrow), Armitage Road (Trumpeter Swans and a Rough-legged Hawk), Savannah Mucklands (another Rough-legged Hawk and an American Kestrel), and Van Dyne Spoor Road (more Trumpeter Swans and Sandhill Cranes). We ended the day at Morgan Road, where we hoped to spot Short-eared Owls that have been seen between there and Carncross Road recently. Instead, we were met by a brief squall that made it hard to see much of anything. Eventually, though, it cleared up, but the Short-eared Owls never appeared. But, two Great Horned Owls made up for it by briefly duetting as it grew dark. All in all, it was a great day to be out birding! This website contains a great tool for aggregating eBird checklists from a Christmas Bird Count or any other set of checklists that you might want to add up: http://iba.torontobirding.ca/ Our cumulative totals for the day are included at the end of this email. Good birding, Matt Medler Ithaca Common Name Total Snow Goose 650 Canada Goose 4080 Trumpeter Swan 16 Tundra Swan 569 Northern Shoveler 10 Gadwall 352 American Wigeon 407 Mallard 1640 American Black Duck 123 Northern Pintail 39 Canvasback 38 Redhead 2450 Ring-necked Duck 901 Greater Scaup 10 Lesser Scaup 3 Bufflehead 15 Common Goldeneye 1 Hooded Merganser 16 Common Merganser 86 Ruddy Duck 84 Wild Turkey 4 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) 61 American Coot 45 Sandhill Crane 348 Bonaparte's Gull 15 Ring-billed Gull 66 Herring Gull 150 Great Black-backed Gull 8 Great Blue Heron 2 Northern Harrier 6 Cooper's Hawk 1 Bald Eagle 29 Red-tailed Hawk 9 Rough-legged Hawk 2 Great Horned Owl 2 Belted Kingfisher 3 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1 Red-bellied Woodpecker 14 Downy Woodpecker 4 Hairy Woodpecker 9 Pileated Woodpecker 1 Northern Flicker 15 American Kestrel 2 Blue Jay 18 American Crow 829 Black-capped Chickadee 25 Tufted Titmouse 2 White-breasted Nuthatch 14 Brown Creeper 2 Winter Wren 2 Carolina Wren 3 European Starling 210 Northern Mockingbird 1 Eastern Bluebird 13 American Robin 476 House Sparrow 4 House Finch 1 American Goldfinch 46 American Tree Sparrow 21 Dark-eyed Junco 3 White-throated Sparrow 5 Savannah Sparrow 1 Song Sparrow 2 Swamp Sparrow 1 Brown-headed Cowbird 30 Yellow-rumped Warbler 5 Northern Cardinal 7 -- 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/ --
