11/16/11 Roosevelt Truck Trail (Minerva, Essex Co.)
I had a beautiful walk on the Roosevelt Truck Trail today. I don't recall ever finding as many Boreal Chickadees on one walk before. Views of the Boreal Chickadees were terrific throughout the hike. Winds were calm all day (not as forecast) and it began to drizzle only on my drive home. There are two wheelchair accessible camping sites along this dirt road trail (there is a gate, but you can call your local DEC office to get the lock combination to drive to the camp sites). There are tents sites, picnic tables with large overhangs at one end for wheelchairs, firewood, fire pits, and wheelchair accessible outhouses. The camp sites are lovely and extremely quiet - I had lunch at the second camp site today. The Roosevelt Truck Trail is becoming one of my favorite birding trails (this is the location where I found 3 singing Cape May Warblers in the spring). It has wonderful boreal habitat. In the morning fog, it felt primeval. The first bird I found - just outside my car - was a male Black-backed Woodpecker. As I hiked, I heard what sounded like another Black-backed Woodpecker, so I started to bushwhack toward the sound. What I found was hemlock cones dropping to the ground - and at least 120 Pine Siskins in a feeding frenzy in the huge hemlock tree above me! The tree appeared to be boiling with siskins - it was quite a sight! The siskins moved to a birch tree next to the hemlock so I was able to finally count them. I found another group of 3 Black-backed Woodpeckers (2 were giving the rattle call) on my way out - I believe there were actually 4, but I could only hear/observe 3 at once. One of the Ruffed Grouse was drumming and I heard yet another new (to me) Common Raven vocalization (their vocalizations seem endless). I will paste in my eBird report: Roosevelt Truck Trail (southern trailhead), Essex, US-NY Nov 16, 2011 9:45 AM - 2:15 PM Protocol: Traveling 5.2 mile(s) Comments: 39 to 50 degrees, calm winds, cloudy. Wonderful bird walk! 18 species Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) 4 Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus) 1 Black-backed Woodpecker (Picoides arcticus) 4 Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) 1 Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) 15 American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) 2 Common Raven (Corvus corax) 5 Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus) 57 Boreal Chickadee (Poecile hudsonicus) 20 5 Flocks: 2, 3, 7, 4, 4 Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) 24 Brown Creeper (Certhia americana) 5 Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa) 26 Dark-eyed Junco (Junco hyemalis) 10 Purple Finch (Carpodacus purpureus) 20 White-winged Crossbill (Loxia leucoptera) 4 Pine Siskin (Spinus pinus) 235 American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) 6 Evening Grosbeak (Coccothraustes vespertinus) 5 This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (http://ebird.org) Joan Collins Long Lake, NY -- 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/[email protected]/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/ --
