Such a busy birdy day, that after my noon time adventures previously reported, I went back out at 4pm (3pm bird time) to walk the dog and watch the skies some more. While we were out, a couple dozen TURKEY VULTURES came off their now familiar roost in the Asbury pines and started circling around. I swear they like to come check me out as much I do them: they fly really low over my yard and have gotten somewhat more accustomed to staying on trees ringing my yard if I don't make too much fuss playing with the dog. I probably should shower more often.
Anyway, I was factoring 'large group of big low swirling birds' out of my search image when suddenly one of them was not a TUVU: it was a GREAT BLUE HERON who had appeared from southward. The GBHE also circled 3 times around the yard/house, about 50' higher than the TUVUs giving great looks at this elegant flyer, then it glanced at the creek, but moved off northward (there are nicer ponds there). FOY for me for a yard GBHE and the longest one has ever spent overhead here; they are usually flying purposefully from one watering hole to another. Martha wondered if it was checking our weathervane which sports a copper GBHE as the ornament. I stayed out a while longer and was finally rewarded with a vee of 40 SNOW GEESE (this time I counted), the only ones I saw all day. These were also the first visual I had on these guys as a yard bird, though I had counted them before listening to their barks during prior migrations at night. ______________________ 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/[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/ --
