At about 1:30 yesterday, Steve Schuyler ( a member of the Mearns club) and I scoured the swales at Southlands where the Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow has been seen for the past week, but we were unable to locate the bird. It became very windy shortly after we arrived at Southlands and possibly that kept the bird out of view. We spent about two hours searching.
For anyone who might go today, if you walk along the cattail swale on the west side of the road, continue until you spot another small stand of cattails running parallel to the road. It's hard to see from the road because of the slight rise in the land. In this stand of cattails, I spotted a small brown bird fly into the reeds from south to north at so low an elevation it almost looked like it was skimming the water. The bird dropped down quickly. Steve watched as I walked alongside east-facing side of the ditch (it was not very long) trying to flush the bird. By the time I got to the end, he hadn't seen anything and neither had I. However, as I was crossing over the water to continue my sweep going in the opposite direction, I saw the bird again fly up, staying very low and flying only a distance of 1-2 feet before dropping back down again. Because I was on the opposite side of the cattail stand from Steve, he wasn't able to see the bird's second appearance. The light was poor and my glimpses were so fleeting that venturing a guess as to the identification of the bird is out of the question, but folks who go today may wish to check that area. Susan Joseph Rhinebeck, NY -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES Archives: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
