Took a long trip to Chimney Bluffs State Park with my wife to see the Western
Grebe. The Western Grebe was seen for quite some time and fairly easily found.
Great views. Great bird. Life Bird. Many other birders were there to see this
extralimital bird. Even if we didn't see the western grebe, the trip would have
still been worth it. This is an absolutely beautiful park with very unique
"chimney" geological formations from the last ice age. Awesome.
Additionally, at the park, there were many red-necked grebes along with common
goldeneyes, bufflehead, red-breasted mergansers, few long-tailed duck, one
white-winged scoter, many ring-billed and herring gulls. We had 2 belted
kingfishers near the chimney formations at the park. There was also a northern
shrike seen well near the parking area.
We then stopped at Van Dyne Sporer Road. There was a rough-legged hawk soaring
around with many waterfowl in the flooded parts of the fields and among the
vegetation. Pintail was the most common duck, there were also ring-necked
ducks, redhead, american widgeon and green-winged teal. We didn't spend that
much time here so I wouldn't be surprised if there were other species mixed in.
Next stop was the Mucklands in Savannah, NY. Gone are the tens of thousands of
snow geese of a week ago, but we had several tundra swans, ring-necked ducks
and saw two sandhill cranes flying and vocalizing. cool.
At Tschache Pool, loads of birders watching loads of gadwall, american widgeon,
1 eurasian widgeon seen by many, a few northern shoveler, 2 bald eagles high up
and others.
At the Visitor's Center Montezuma, we had many shoveler, several green-winged
teal and found one male breeding plumage blue-winged teal that I believe
was seen by Susan Danskin and Ann Mitchell earlier.
The main pool of Montezuma was loaded with Aythya genus...lots of canvasback,
and redheads primarily, but also a fair number of lesser scaup, few greater
scaup, and ring-necked ducks. also we had 1 american coot, 4 ruddy ducks, and
bufflehead within and around the large raft. The birds were fairly close to
wildlife drive and with great lighting made for some excellent views.
Great day in all...63 species total.
Dave Nicosia
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