Headed up to Montezuma NWR this morning. My first stop was Benning Marsh and I got on the WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER, LESSER YELLOWLEGS and KILLDEER pretty quickly. These birds were directly across from the parking area.
Then I drove back around to do the wildlife drive more carefully. First bird of interest was a late MARSH WREN calling in the marsh grasses not far from the road across from Larue's Lagoon. With some phishing the bird came out and I got some nice looks. Then there was the waterfowl on the main pool. It was spectacular, plain and simple. Large numbers and lots of variety. Based on Mike Tetlow's numbers I grossly underestimated the numbers in my ebird report. But nevertheless it was awesome. All normal *aythya* species were present (minus TUDU). There were loads of AMERICAN WIGEON, and GADWALL. Additional birds were RUDDY DUCKS, MALLARDS, NORTHERN PINTAIL, NORTHERN SHOVELER, and 1 BUFFLEHEAD. I tried but failed to refind the EURASIAN WIGEON seen here recently. Also present in large numbers were AMERICAN COOTS. There were also several PIED-BILLED GREBES. After enjoying the diversity of the waterfowl for a while in 64F weather, the cold front came through with very strong winds and a sudden temperature drop. So I went back to Benning and I found all the above shorebirds again plus a GREATER YELLOWLEGS. I had a nice light phase ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK soar over Benning as well. Additionally, I saw 4 swallows fly over Benning south toward the main pool. They were pretty high up and flying south with the winds. The lighting was poor and I did not get any color on these swallows. I don't think they were TREE SWALLOWS but can't be sure. Could they have been CAVE SWALLOWS heading south in the strong north winds?? Not sure on this.... On the way out I stopped at Goose "Haven" and saw the CATTLE EGRETS which posed nice for me. My ebird lists are here... http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S32621595 http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S32621751 Dave Nicosia -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
