I and at least eight other birders tried for the Brewster's and Golden-winged Warbler along the power line trail at Ironwood Road. We took the trail north of the parking lot. I don't know if anyone went south.
Park here: 41.234766, -74.237734. To get to the trail going north you have to walk out the south end of the parking lot, then loop around to the west and north. Cross the stream. When you leave the woods and head north you will cross over two small hills. The first one is quite steep, the second not. Start looking after the second hill and before you get to the third hill, which is really tall. I've been told you can keep on going past that. I encountered the Brewster's between the second and third hills. However, I didn't get a very satisfying look and no good photo. This was around 8:00 or 8:30. Another birder and I saw the Golden-winged in about the same spot thirty minutes later. Both birds were elusive and frustrating. I don't think anyone saw either bird after that. I left about 10:30 and don't know what happened after that. Prairie Warblers are abundant. Bob Lewis Sleepy Hollow NY On Wednesday, May 13, 2020, 9:13:27 AM EDT, CobyNomi Klein <dobyn...@gmail.com> wrote: Sterling Forest was eerily quiet yesterday. I've never seen the place that empty, of birds and people. I still ended up seeing 55 species, including 14 warbler species ,(I've never been so disappointed with such a high count). There was one golden-wing at the base of the hill, heading north on the power line trail at the end of Ironwood Dr. Further north, up the hill was a Brewster's warbler singing his little heart out. In fact, I saw more Brewster's warblers yesterday than I did golden-wings, one on the power line trail and one on the rifle range trail on the east side of Long Meadow Rd. And what's really amazing is that I'm fairly certain those are the exact same Brewster's I saw, in those exact same spots, singing the same unusual songs, the last time I was there, 2 YEARS AGO! The other thing that struck me was that the golden-wings are going to be in trouble there and for once the culprits aren't humans. It's the beavers. They've dammed up the stream that runs through the swamp at the bottom of the hill on the east side of the power line trail (as you head north), creating an enormous pond and inundating a large tract of golden-wing nesting habitat. Beaver ponds that drowned warbler habitat at the rifle range and Blue Lake have been recently drained and the tussock sedge that the warblers nest in has regrown, but the beavers cut down so many trees and drowned so many others. The golden-wings (in Sterling Forest at least) like their nests to be in swamp forest not open swamp so I don't know if they are going to be able to move back in. It's hard times for everyone these days. C. Klein -- NYSbirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basics Rules and Information Subscribe, Configuration and Leave Archives: The Mail Archive Surfbirds ABA Please submit your observations to eBird! -- -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm 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://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
