Hi all, Kevin and I went to Summerhill today, where we, like many others, had a nice WHITE-WINGED CROSSBILL experience on Lick Street just south of Hoag. We saw probably 45 crossbills in several large flocks that moved around constantly, mostly feeding in the white spruces but briefly in norway spruces and in some nearby tamaracks. I heard a couple Pine Siskins, but did not see any redpolls as Laura reported. We checked the Hovel Chalet feeders where a redpoll was seen yesterday but saw nothing there.
On the way up there (around 8:15), I asked Kevin to find me a shrike, and 15 seconds later he did, a beautiful gray immature NORTHERN SHRIKE in the top of a tree on the east side of Johnson Road in Dryden, about half a mile north of Rt. 13. In the early afternoon I went down to the lake, first to Hogs Hole and then to Stewart Park. From Hogs Hole I saw many of the same birds others have been seeing down there (although I don't think anyone has posted in a while), including a large flock of Redhead (perhaps 700-800, a couple thousand fewer than in past days) with over a hundred of each scaup, Ring-necked Ducks, half a dozen Canvasback, four RUDDY DUCKS, several AMERICAN WIGEON, 16 Hooded Mergansers, lots of Common Mergansers, a single Double-crested Cormorant, four GREAT BLUE HERONS on the shoreline. I saw only three COMMON LOONS from Hogs Hole, but from Stewart Park Ken Rosenberg and I saw two RED-THROATED LOONS. I also had a HORNED GREBE with the goldeneye flock of Stewart Park. The only goose of note we found in the thousands of Canada Geese was the presumed CANADA x SNOW GOOSE hybrid that I have been told has been around since the first of the year. I did not see the male WOOD DUCK today, but it was seen at Hogs Hole in the morning and was around the boat house at Stewart Park last night. I checked for the female GREEN-WINGED TEAL found by Jeff Gerbracht yesterday afternoon in the channel by the old Verizon store (across from Lowe's) downtown, but did not see it. Good birding, -Jay -- Jay McGowan Macaulay Library Cornell Lab of Ornithology jw...@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/ --
