Today (Monday) I decided to try for the N.Shrike again, what with it not snowing yet ! Halfway there, I realized I forgot to call Mary Laura Lamont to invite her along, as well as realizing I forgot to take my C-phone. Making a command decision, I made a left on Penny La., heading for M.L's., and promptly caused a cock pheasant to scatter from "gritting" to the closest hedge - 1st of the year for me ! (Turns out M.L. had 5 there yesterday !!!!!). She, of course, wanted to go along, with one of her reasons being she hadn't seen it yet - and she lives right there ! We failed in our quest, after checking all of the areas that the NSHR had been reported from. We crossed paths with 2 other birders from the Setauket Area, whose success rate was similar to our own !
After dropping Mary Laura off at her place, I went home by way of the Riverhead Buffalo Farm. Instead of finding the feeding corral full of buffalo...it was full of brantas - about 2,000 of them ! Among this # was a single adult Snow Goose, a blue morph ! There were also ~ a dozen mallards, ~ a dozen mourning doves and a flyover raptor, which I was late to identify, but knew about it early on because of the din raised by the concerned flock ! The most unusual bird of the afternoon was the adult, male, non breeding Pintail Duck, which I took to be a hen mallard on first perusal ! Cheers, Bob -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --