Decided to check out Chautauqua Lake in the SW corner of the state today given the nice weather. Lots of waterfowl still on the lake with the highlights being a hybrid ad. ROSS'S x "LESSER" SNOW GOOSE (photo here: http://picasaweb.google.com/jmpawli88/2009#) amongst Canadas in Sherman's Bay and keeping up with the hybrid theme, a hybrid drake COMMON GOLDENEYE x HOODED MERGANSER amongst Goldeneyes just west of Burtis Bay. The goose was visible looking east from the trailer park parking lot just east of the boat marina near the intersection of routes 394 and 474 in the town of Shermans Bay, while the hybrid Merganser x Goldeneye was visible between cottages along Front St. between Burtis Bay and Sherman's Bay.
Waterbird totals along the south shore from Mayville to Jamestown: Red-throated Loon - 1 (NW of Ashville Bay) Pied-billed Grebe - 12 Tundra Swan - 131 Common Merganser - 14 Red-breasted Merganser - 4 Hooded Merganser - 116 American Black Duck - 3 Gadwall - 4 Ruddy Duck - 941 (all in one large raft just NW of Ashville Bay) Redhead - 1 (w/Ruddies) Lesser Scaup - 3 Ring-necked Duck - 6 Bufflehead - 574 Common Goldeneye - 76 American Coot - 574 (nearly all in a large raft in Burtis Bay) Bonaparte's Gull - 40 (est.) While scanning the lake from a small dock in Lakewood, it was interesting to see a juvenile White-tailed Deer out in the middle of the lake swimming in towards the shore. It eventually reached the rocky/pebbly shoreline where I was standing, and made several attempts to stand, but fell over at least a dozen times, extremely exhausted after swimming for over a mile. Being as exhausted as it was, it paid no attention to me whatsoever, and after about 10 minutes appeared to get some of its bearings back and was able to pull itself back up onto shore. The resilience it displayed upon recovering from probably the most difficult hour of its life was truly impressive. I also stopped at Barcelona Harbor on the Lake Erie shore on the way home, and it was very active with at least 850 Bonaparte's Gulls and an ad. LITTLE GULL feeding on a school of baitfish at the west end of the harbor. Additionally, 2 Common Loons were in close skulking around and taking advantage of the cornered fish, while a Horned Grebe was just outside the breakwall; 3 Great Blue Herons also flew in just as it was getting dark. Jim Pawlicki Amherst, NY -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES Archives: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
