Went birding today with Dan Watkins, Jon Weeks and Rich Youket. Our goal birds were the TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE at Sampson State Park and PINE GROSBEAKS all the way up at Webster Park along Lake Ontario. Unfortunately we dipped on both!! Plus the winds were so strong on Lake Ontario that we didn't see anything of note up there. Fortunately, the winds died down markedly inland which is typically the case.
So we headed back and decided to go to Lower Lake Road NW Cayuga Lake. On the way, we drove along Martin Road by the Lott Farm and we saw a nice flock of HORNED LARKS. We counted 18. Many were close to the road with great views. Then Jon spotted a "mound" in the field fairly distant. We weren't sure it was a bird until it moved its head. In the scope, it was an obvious SHORT-EARED OWL. I got some distant digi-scoped images... http://www.flickr.com/photos/davenicosia/8346860899/in/photostream http://www.flickr.com/photos/davenicosia/8346861149/in/photostream/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/davenicosia/8346861247/in/photostream/ This was around 310-315 pm. So we still managed sometime at Lower Lake Road on the northwest side of Cayuga Lake before sunset. It was very active. There was a lot of ice near the shore but at the edge and beyond there was a nice concentration of TUNDRA SWANS and waterfowl. We estimated about 500 TUNDRA SWANS as they seemed everywhere. There were also many COMMON MERGANSERS, a couple RED-BREASTED MERGANSERS, several distant HOODED MERGANSERS, many COMMON GOLDENEYES, 2 AMERICAN COOTS, many GADWALL, a few BUFFLEHEAD, 1 RING-NECKED DUCK, many many BLACK DUCKS and MALLARDS, and a couple flocks of SCAUP sp flying. There were also 2 immature BALD EAGLES on the ice and a RED FOX who scampered way out on the ice but did not attack any birds that we saw. We also had all the 3 common gull species. Gone are the thousands of SNOW GEESE that I had here over a month ago. We saw no SNOW GEESE but there were still many many CANADA GEESE which is expected. Overall we totaled 48 species with 26 species at Lower Lake Road alone. Dave Nicosia -- 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/ --
