Hi all, I spent over three hours this morning photographing the large Snow Bunting flock on Mt Pleasant. I took more than 1000 images so it will take me a while to get any of them online, but I did use one of my photos to count the birds and estimate the size of the flock. The number of individuals was much higher than that I had expected - in one image I counted 810 individuals, and I estimated that image to have represented 85-90% of the flock. That means the total number is likely to be over 1000 birds! Wow!
It was wonderful to be in the midst of these fascinating little birds as the flock swirled around feeding on the weed seeds in the field (west of the observatory). Several times they all flew up and landed at the tops of some of the gorgeously ice-kissed trees around the field, other times they landed on the ground in a potato field and rested there blending in very well with the potatoes lying on the ground. But mostly the flock was on the wing, moving along with a wave-like motion through the weeds. Experiences like this go a long way toward making winter liveable for me! 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 http://www.agpix.com/mari -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
