I walked around WIlson starting at north and circling the pond. Lots of singing HOUSE WRENs, a couple GREY CATBIRDs in song, many other regulars. I saw 3 adult GREAT BLUE HERONs: 1 on nest, and 2 widely separated on the 'back' (south) pond all at the same time. There was also a flyover later on my walk but I don't know if it was one of the previous 3.
No warblers that I could pick out but Mark probably could. However, near the pavilion on south Wilson, I heard exactly one phrase from a WARBLING VIREO. Then it shut up and put on the invisibility cloak. I know what group of trees it came from but gave up looking and listening after 5 min. Love the Mink story, Dave. I believe I found a mink den, visible from Podell Boardwalk. A bit hard to describe, but enter the boardwalk from the lab, go about 30' then look northwest (toward the pond). I was hunting for the Green Heron (last week) that I had just seen fly across and land on the south side of the berm, when instead I spotted the mink moving around near a 'beaver dam' like pile of sticks with entrance hole up on the land, and after a few more minutes lying there sunning itself. The tricky bit is that you must be lined up with a lot of intervening trees and stumps to see this. Certainly without the mink moving, I never would have noticed it. As I was about to enter the lab with nothing new but the elusive vireo, I looked one last time from the bridge toward the pond and there 30' away on a floating log was a SOLITARY SANDPIPER. Very good looks, it even turned for me, but as I started to walk away satisfied with a new year bird, a CANADA GOOSE came over and gave it a goos(ing) so it flew a short distance toward the feeding area. ______________________ 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/ --
