I watched from Myers Point for an hour this morning. It was cold and calm and a few bursts of birds kept things interesting, but overall not an exceptional morning. Several groups of waterfowl were heading down the lake, especially between 8:00 and 8:30 or so, including groups of scaup, Ring-necked Ducks, American Black Ducks, Northern Pintail, American Wigeon, Green-winged Teal, and White-winged Scoters. Several Horned Grebes were hanging out on the lake north of the spit, and a RED-NECKED GREBE was nicely visible on the lake off the marina. DUNLIN and SNOW BUNTINGS flew over several times but never stopped on the spit. http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S15517385
Last night I went owling for a while and managed to hear a couple of calls from a LONG-EARED OWL at the Park Preserve, in the spruce area in the northern part of the preserve (closer to the parking area), as well as coyotes, migrating geese, and a Barred Owl closer to the south end. The Long-eared was not responsive to imitations, but I will try again there soon and get the word out if it starts being more vocal. No luck with saw-whets there, but I got a nice series of calls out of a NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL at the intersection of Hammond Hill and Star Stanton roads, giving yelp calls (as in http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/49736) perhaps in response to tooting a few minutes before or perhaps in response to the Boreal Owl song I played a few seconds before it responded, hard to say. Lesser Black-backed Gulls continue at the Stevenson Road compost. Today an adult, a 4th year, and a 2nd or 3rd year were with the throng of Herring and Ring-billed on the piles. -- Jay McGowan Macaulay Library Cornell Lab of Ornithology [email protected] -- 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/ --
