for those who live in the n.dutchess area and are interested, after being plowed out in the late afternoon, i ventured forth into the tundra-like conditions in search of (wild) life.
The howling winds, which by my estimates were in the 50-60 mph range, created 'whiteout' conditions in the farm field areas, bringing me and others to a complete halt. many roads that we use practically everyday were impassable due to due to tremendous snow drifts which accumulated.
The only birds of note for us here in the very northern reaches of the NYC birding area that i had in the course of my birding yesterday, was a largish flock of blackbirds on the smithfield valley rd in amenia, and a pretty good concentration of canada geese at stissing lake in pine plains (ca. 3500-4500 individuals). despite searching, i could not locate any winter finch flocks, anywhere (no surprise).
the weather conditions prevented me from examining the canada flock in detail (wind, blowing ground snow, sun glare), but if there is a rare goose in the area, i feel it would likely be in that flock as this must be the concentration of all the geese that have been evicted from the surrounding area's corn fields. the other item of note is that there are a couple of dead canadas on the ice there, which may attract stissing's local raptor population, specifically, the now hard to find golden eagles. the lake also hosted two co. goldeneye.
good birding,
JPA
John Askildsen
Millbrook, New York
