Tuesday, 15 June 2010 Peekamoose Road and Sundown Wild Forest Frank Murphy and I drove west over Peekamoose Road in southwestern Ulster County to Greenville Road and the NYSDEC Vernooy Kill Falls Trailhead in Greenville. We then hiked the trail to Balsam Swamp, a sphagnum bog and fir/laurel swamp in the Sundown Wild Forest.
Highlights along Peekamoose Road were at least four widely scattered singing Acadian Flycatchers, including a decent look at one male along Kanape Brook, 14 singing male Canada Warblers with nice looks at two individuals that we stopped to observe, and Veery singing or calling along a good length of the road. We also observed a nice flight of butterflies along the road, including numerous fresh Mourning Cloaks, nectaring Tiger Swallowtails, probing Red-spotted Purples, a few White Admirals, Red Admirals, and a few fresh Summer Azures. Several Swainson's Thrush were heard singing in the forest surrounding the bog. Balsam Swamp was quiet, difficult to penetrate, and more overgrown with trees than it was the last time we visited some ten years ago. We negotiated Mountain Laurel thickets along the periphery and encountered unstable moss mats in the open wet pockets, limiting our route this time to skirting the southern edge, and resulting in an inadvertent and prolonged bushwhack back out to the road. Approaching from a dirt jeep road on the north end might provide better access to the inner bog. Our complete list of 41 bird species with approximate numbers of individuals is copied below. Steve M. Chorvas Saugerties, NY Wild Turkey 1 Great Blue Heron 1 Red-shouldered Hawk 1 Barred Owl 1 Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 6 Downy Woodpecker 2 Hairy Woodpecker 1 Eastern Wood-Pewee 3 Acadian Flycatcher 4 Least Flycatcher 7 Eastern Phoebe 2 Blue-headed Vireo 4 Warbling Vireo 1 Red-eyed Vireo 4 Blue Jay 1 Black-capped Chickadee 2 Brown Creeper 1 Winter Wren 5 Veery 12 Swainson's Thrush 6 Hermit Thrush 4 Wood Thrush 3 American Robin 8 Cedar Waxwing 3 Magnolia Warbler 5 Black-throated Blue Warbler 2 Black-throated Green Warbler 4 Blackburnian Warbler 8 Black-and-white Warbler 2 American Redstart 9 Ovenbird 10 Louisiana Waterthrush 2 Canada Warbler 14 Scarlet Tanager 5 Chipping Sparrow 5 Song Sparrow 2 Dark-eyed Junco 4 Rose-breasted Grosbeak 3 Indigo Bunting 1 Purple Finch 1 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
