Unfortunately almost the first bird of the day was a BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER who sang once as I stepped out the back door of the lab, then flew up from a perch probably on our BBQ grill a couple feet from the windows, smacked it, broke his neck and fell to the ground. I picked him up hoping for a revival but it was not to be, so he will soon be an educational device in the skins lab. Seemed to be not quite in full breeding color. These windows have black see-through curtains to help cut down bird strikes but they didn't help this time.
Coming back out after putting him inside, I saw the 2 GREEN HERONs reported yesterday fly one after the other across the pond to the snag tree near Sherwood. Also watched one of the nesting GREAT BLUE HERONs bring a new stick to the nest where it was gratefully accepted by the mate who raised neck and bill straight up and made the peculiar throaty noise reserved for such an occasion. Walking around the pond got looks at YELLOW-RUMPED and YELLOW WARBLERs, my FOY MAGNOLIA WARBLER foraging and singing quietly, heard OVENBIRD, heard and saw HOUSE WREN(s), heard BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER, thought I might have heard Black-and-white, but when I went to check the board at the front desk, found that Brad had posted Blackburnian so maybe I heard a trace of them (not claiming either). 2 BARN SWALLOWS flew over, and more than one BALTIMORE ORIOLE was singing. A BLUE-HEADED VIREO was heard a couple times. Singing BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD, Chickadees, Robins, Titmouse were all noted. Highlight though was that while at the base of Sherwood, almost ready to walk out to the platform where I might have come across the Kentucky Warbler that Brad and Mary found only a short time earlier (! drat !), I heard really intense crow mobbing SW of the platform back in the thicket of pine. After I listened for a bit, I said 'that is NOT a hawk, it MUST be an owl; oh boy, these guys might have found me a Barred Owl!". So I had to go all the way around by the bench, then to the trail fork onto West Trail, the mobbing getting more intense as I got closer. Scanning high and low and realizing the mob was down in the thick part, I finally raised glasses and 50 yds away saw in full front view on a branch, the GREAT HORNED OWL looking back at me. A few seconds later, one of the crows, literally sitting 2' away on a branch, lunged at the owl and everyone flew off into the forest. ______________________ Chris Pelkie Research Analyst Bioacoustics Research Program Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road Ithaca, NY 14850 -- 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/ --
