Hi everyone – here is the report for the CBC birding trip to South Monkey Run this past weekend.
Seven birders joined me for a snowy morning walk, the last Sunday in April - now a distant memory after the last few very warm days. Despite the wet snow, which pelted our eyes and fogged up our binoculars, we managed to find 25 species of birds, and, I think, we had fun. I won't go into all the details, especially as I seem to have forgotten some of them already; fortunately, Wes was keeping the eBird list! We started out from the Monkey Run parking lot, first heading towards Fall Creek, and veering left, going downstream a short way; we then backtracked, and made our way upstream, eventually following the trail uphill to a forest of red pines and white pines, and then over to the railroad right of way, and back to the parking lot. Oh, and mud, yes, mud. We heard a grouse drumming (near the parking lot), and saw cedar waxwings and ruby-crowned kinglets along the way. All of us heard a towhee in a large brushy area; some of the group stayed long enough to get good looks. Closer to Fall Creek, we saw common mergansers and wood ducks - we thought that perhaps some of the ducks were nesting in the sycamores on the other side of the river, but we couldn't quite confirm that they were entering a nest cavity. In the pine woods, overlooking the creek from a bit of a height, there was one popular pine which seemed to attract several birds, including a palm warbler and two brown creepers. On the way back along the old railroad right of way, we had very close looks at a white-throated sparrow sitting in a bush close to the path; it was joined by another white-throated sparrow which preferred to remain less obvious. We saw 25 species, in 2.5 hours, on a 2.5 mile walk. For a complete list of birds, please see our checklist: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S45069365 Thanks, Liisa -- Liisa Mobley -- 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/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/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/ --
