[cayugabirds-l] Wegman's birds
Looked for the Audubon's a little before noon but we were unsuccessful. Did see the Yellow Warbler in the weeds at the far very south end of the parking lot, near where they keep the snow plow. Sue -- John and Sue Gregoire Field Ornithologists Kestrel Haven Avian Migration Observatory 5373 Fitzgerald Road Burdett,NY 14818-9626 Website: http://www.empacc.net/~kestrelhaven/ Conserve and Create Habitat -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
[cayugabirds-l] Stewart Park and NE Ithaca, Sat 11/16
The immature/female BLACK SCOTER was still present off the east end of Stewart Park in Ithaca on Saturday morning. Seeing it among all the RUDDY DUCKS and BUFFLEHEADS requires patience, discernment, and some luck, especially because the scoter spends a lot of time under the surface. For me, overall shape and size were only somewhat distinctive because of varying postures among the Ruddy Ducks, including frequent lowering of the tail. Head shape differences were a bit more helpful (Ruddy Ducks' heads peaked between central and rear crown, Black Scoter round). Clearest for me were differences in the cheek patch. The male Ruddy Duck has a bright white, round, and unbroken cheek patch. The female Ruddy Duck has a dull patch broken with a horizontal line. The scoter has a cheek patch that is duller than the male Ruddy but brighter than the female Ruddy. The scoter's cheek patch seems unbroken most of the time, but sometimes actually shows a faint but very distinctive VERTICAL line through it. A gray EASTERN SCREECH-OWL remains present in our yard in northeast Ithaca. Late yesterday afternoon, the owl struggled for at least 10 minutes to cast a pellet, but retch after heaving retch yielded nothing. At one point, through my open window about 40 meters away, I heard the owl issue a wheezy groaning vraf as it gagged. After all this, clearly exhausted, the poor little bird just rested with its eyes closed, deferring its usual twilight rise to full alertness. https://picasaweb.google.com/114049026073343451957/EasternScreechOwls#594687 1568698802802 I saw the owl for just a few seconds early this morning before it retreated into the box. A brief search under the tree revealed no cleared pellet. Mark Chao -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
[cayugabirds-l] Mt Pleasant Rough-legged Hawk
Around 11:30 this morning, I found a Rough-legged Hawk hovering over the fields just east of the Mt Pleasant Observatory. I watched it for about 15 minutes, hoping it would come back into photo range, but it slowly made its way south, circling and hovering as it went, until it was out of sight. Hopefully there will be others up here this winter. Marie Marie Read Wildlife Photography 452 Ringwood Road Freeville NY 13068 USA Phone 607-539-6608 e-mail m...@cornell.edu http://www.marieread.com ***NEW*** Music of the Birds Vol 1 ebook for Apple iPad now available from iTunes http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/music-of-the-birds-v1/id529347014?mt=11 -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
[cayugabirds-l] Sandhills Cranes
37 Sandhills Cranes viewed from East Rd. , Montezuna NWR. 3:50 pm Saturday. Laura Laura Stenzler l...@cornell.edu -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
[cayugabirds-l] Saturday Around the Lake
John Confer and I drove the lake circuit today, looking for anything of interest. And we did find a few things. Center Road - 50 Snow Buntings, 6 Horned Larks Lake Ridge Road - 2 rather late EASTERN MEADOWLARKS Aurora Bay - at least 140 Common Loons, 10 Horned Grebes Frontenac Park (Union Springs) - 8 Bonaparte's Gulls. Some foraging, some just loafing. MNWR Visitor's Center - juv. GLOSSY IBIS, 2 Dunlin Knox/Marsellus Marsh - hundreds of Tundra Swans, 34 Sandhill Cranes (my count - may have been one or two more) And, no, this is not the entire list of birds seen/heard today! Bob McGuire -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
[cayugabirds-l] Up the East Side of Cayuga Lake
Hi all, Today, Ton and I went up the east side of Cayuga Lake to Montezuma, starting at Stewart Park at 11 am and ending at the Potato building on route 31 at 4:30. (By the way, as I was typing this just now, I saw the posting by Bob McGuire of his and John Confer’s trip up the lake today. We managed to either miss or see fewer of the cool birds they saw! Amazing how that happens…!) The weather was magnificent and the lake from Stewart Park was calm and smooth. Mark Chao already mentioned the many BUFFLEHEAD, RUDDY DUCKS and the female BLACK SCOTER, all of which were still there at 11 am. In addition , there were 3 DOUBLE CRESTED CORMORANTS, many GREAT BLACK BACKED, HERRING and RING-BILLED Gulls. MALLARDS and COMMON MERGANSERS made appearances, as did a GREAT BLUE HERON, KINGFISHER and HOUSE SPARROW, all at the Swan Pen. From there we headed north, stopping first at Myers Point where we were delighted to find a PEREGRINE FALCON perched at the top of a tree at Salt Point, just northwest of the Osprey platform. There were lots of gulls on the sandbar and 2 COMMON LOONS far to the north but not much else. We were worried that all of the loons had left, but this was certainly not the case, as I will describe soon. Lake Ridge Road provided a flock of about 30 BROWN-HEADED COWBIRDS, mostly females, with about 5 female/young RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS mixed in. Soon after leaving Lake Ridge Rd. and joining Rte 90, we found 12 TURKEYS in a field on the west side of the road, just before the DEC deer check station. We followed Lake Rd. next, where we found the first of 2 KESTRELs for the day. Long Point State Park was our destination, where we had lunch on the north side of the park while counting COMMON LOONS. We ended up counting at least 80 LOONS from the park and are sure there were many more. They were in groups of 1 – 5, diving, fishing and preening in the sun on the glass-like water. Continuing on to Aurora, we found many more LOONS as well as 7 HORNED GREBES, viewed from the parking lot above the Aurora boathouse. We also found a very, very large and distant raft of white birds floating in the middle of the lake, off to the northwest. We are pretty sure this was a huge flock of SNOW GEESE, but we really couldn’t confirm it. Did anyone else see them, to confirm? Just past Levanna, we came across a flock of several hundred STARLINGS and one irate MOCKINGBID who was trying to keep them out of his/her tree! We heard GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS in the same area. Factory Road Pond in Union Springs held one GREEN-WINGED TEAL, 1 GALDWALL and one BUFFLEHEAD. The larger pond along 90 in Union Springs had BUFFLEHEAD, GADWALL.2 REDHEAD DUCKS, which we thought was pretty cool until we found a flock of probably 600 or more Redheads and SCAUP sp just south of Townline Rd. (the road just before the railroad tracks and opposite the road to Lettie Cook Forest)! The light was really bad so it was hard to tell how many of the birds were Redheads and how many Scaup, but it was very impressive indeed. The wildlife drive at Montezuma NWR didn’t have many birds, but we did find good numbers of SHOVELER, COOTS, SCAUP and RINGNECKED DUCKS. Tschache Pool provided the only BALD EAGLE for the day, an adult that was sitting on a clump of grass in the middle of the open water, very close to the parking area. Finally, we hit East Road and the Knox-Marsellus marsh which was FULL of TUNDRA SWANS (many hundreds), PINTAILED DUCKS, MALLARDS, GREAT BLUE HERONS, SHOVELERS, GREEN-WINGED TEAL, one MARSH HARRIER and, most special of all for us, 37 SANDHILL CRANES. The cranes were all together along the edge of the corn, easily seen from East Road but quite far off. We drove to the Potato Building on Rte 31 to try for a better view, but ended up looking back into the setting sun. We still managed to see the birds and ended our day watching them graze with the sun setting behind them. The full list is below. This was the first trip up the lake we have managed to take since the spring! It was a great day. Laura Stenzler and Ton Schat Cayuga Lake Basin, US-NY Nov 16, 2013 11:00 AM - 4:30 PM Protocol: Traveling 60.0 mile(s) Comments: Up and back on the east side of the lake, Stewart Park to East Road, MNWR. 48 species Snow Goose X Canada Goose X Tundra Swan X Gadwall X American Black Duck X Mallard X Northern Shoveler X Northern Pintail X Green-winged Teal X Redhead X Ring-necked Duck X Greater Scaup X Black Scoter 1 female plumage, stewart park with bufflehead Bufflehead X Common Merganser 5 Ruddy Duck X Wild Turkey 12 Common Loon X Horned Grebe 7 Double-crested Cormorant 3 Great Blue Heron X Turkey Vulture 17 Northern Harrier 1 Bald Eagle 1 Red-tailed Hawk 6 American Coot X Sandhill Crane 37 Knox-Marsellus marsh Ring-billed Gull X Herring Gull X Great Black-backed Gull X Rock Pigeon X Belted Kingfisher 1 Red-bellied Woodpecker 1 Hairy
[cayugabirds-l] warblers; crows; raptor; musings
At noon today I saw the YELLOW WARBLER by the southwest corner of the Wegmans parking lot. It flew up from tall thick weeds into some saplings along with a small flock of HOUSE SPARROWS, one of which chased it a bit. On the west side of the Wegmans building in saplings along the bank of the relief channel I saw at least 2 MYRTLE YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS, which flew across the channel and out of sight, probably to other trees nearby. There were at least 2 other warbler-sized birds with them which I did not identify. Although I did not see the Audubon's Warbler today, it may still be around, and the Myrtles which I saw well there today were different enough from the bird I saw not-as-well on Thursday to further convince me that Thursday's bird was the Audubon's. As I walked along Brindley Street I heard saw a pair of FISH CROWS in a tree on the point of land north of the Brindley Street bridge. At 4pm while Laurie I sat on a park bench along the Cayuga Waterfront Trail just north of the NYS-89 bridge, we saw a fast brown bird fly past us and across the Flood Control Channel, nearly level and aiming at the bushes alongside the Boatyard Grill. It was a hunting MERLIN. I didn't see any House Sparrow movement there as I followed the falcon in my binoculars, but the raptor turned aside, flew south a short distance, then came west across the water again and began rising. It kept climbing and going west until I lost it beyond the tallest treetops of the hill behind us. This prompted several thoughts: (1) Maybe the Merlin is a local bird routinely checking the House Sparrow colonies. (2) I'm glad I'm not a small bird. Every time I see a hunting Accipiter or Falco it takes me a second to realize what's going on, a second in which I'd be nailed. And I've got the easy side view. It's terrifying to think of needing to recognize the threat of such a bird as it came head-on. Of course as a prey item, I probably wouldn't spend time trying to ID it to species... (3) The visual processing which birds do is mind-boggling in order to (a) fly and avoid obstacles or alight on a perch, (b) find their way - at various scales, (c) recognize and interact with members of their own species or flock, (d) find and grab food - aerial plankton and swimming fish being some of the most impressive targets, and (e) recognize and evade threats such as raptors. Often they are doing several of these jobs simultaneously or switching in rapid succession. --Dave Nutter -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basics Rules and Information Subscribe, Configuration and Leave Archives: The Mail Archive Surfbirds BirdingOnThe.Net Please submit your observations to eBird! --
