I birded Stewart Park and Renwick woods from about 8-10am this morning, blissfully unaware of any unusual grebes farther north. In Renwick Woods, I found a GREAT HORNED OWL roosting while being mobbed by three American Crows. The crows gave up without dislodging the owl from its roost. A poor photo is in my checklist: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S9554337
At Stewart Park, the highlight was the huge numbers of Aythya ducks - over 3000 at least. One huge raft east of the lighthouse jetty contained ~2500 REDHEAD and much smaller numbers of RING-NECKED DUCK, SCAUP, and a handful of CANVASBACK. When the entire raft took flight and swirled around in the air (for reasons I never determined), I thought that the scaup were mostly LESSER, but I'm not sure. I had at least 1 GREATER SCAUP near the ice edge. West of the lighthouse jetty was a smaller raft of 400 REDHEAD and 20 CANVASBACK. Also present: 8 COMMON GOLDENEYE, 5 COMMON LOONS, 2 RUDDY DUCK, 1 WOOD DUCK, and 1 COOT. My checklist, including two pictures of the Aythya in flight: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S9554387 Good Birding, Nick Sly -- 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/[email protected]/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/ --
