I started out with one - later joined by two more - folks for the bird club trip today. Remember the adage “bad weather, good birding”? Well, today’s trip was one of the best I’ve ever been on (around here, anyway).
The lake was cold and windy, of course. Nevertheless, we had 10 American Pipits and five Killdeer at Myers park. Then a HUGE flock of some 1,000 Horned Larks and hundreds of Snow Buntings on the (distant) manure spread along Davis Road. I’m sure there was a Longspur in there somewhere, but with the distance and the fact that the flock was in constant motion, was unable to pick one out. Horned Grebes from the Aurora boathouse. A large aythya flock off Mackenzie-Childs. Wood Ducks at Factory Street Pond. And then a first-of-year (for me) Tree Swallow hawking insects over the open water at Knox-Marsellus marsh (with a Merlin perched on a phone pole next to the car). We missed the Eurasian Wigeon in the Morgan Road marshes but still had lots of ducks - and a few (first-of-year for me) Northern Shovelers. Bob McGuire -- 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/ --
