We had a dozen people this morning and walked the dike between Knox-Marcellus Marsh and Puddler's Marsh. Water levels are fairly high still and the best shorebird habitat is interspersed between quite a bit of vegetation. Viewing was often difficult but occasionally we would get some decent looks. There was a PEREGRINE FALCON terrorized the birds most of the time we were there from around 7 am to 1130 am . This made for lots of shorebirds and others in flight which was neat. The waders were most impressive with large numbers of GREAT EGRETS and nearly as many GREAT BLUE HERONS all on the north side of K-M Marsh initially. As we walked down toward the dike initially, Jay McGowan spotting a smaller white heron which turned out to be a juvenile SNOWY EGRET. The bird gave us decent scope views and photos but only hung around for about 30 minutes or so and then flew south over the tree line. There were also decent number of BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERONS adults and juveniles. Additionally lots of waterfowl. We did have at least 3 SANDHILL CRANES (probably more). I also got lucky and got a short glimpse of a SORA that quickly went back into the reeds. Unfortunately, I don't believe anyone else got on this elusive bird,
As for songbirda, there was a fair amount of flyover BOBOLINKs, at least 2 INDIGO BUNTINGS, SWAMP SPARROW, MARSH WREN and CEDAR WAXWINGS among others. Some of us did get a look at a MERLIN in the woods on the way back to the cars near the end of the outing. Shorebirds were in decent numbers but again hard to see. We saw many flying around . Species found were PECTORAL SANDPIPERs , SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPERs, LEAST SANDPIPERs, 2 BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS, many SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS, groups of juvenile SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS. We got good looks at the "tiger stripe" pattern on the tertials of these birds. There were also a lot of KILLDEER around with both species of yellowlegs. A few of us heard a SOLITARY SANDPIPER but it was not seen. This gave us 10 species of shorebirds for this outing. I accidentally selected a DUNLIN from my ebird app which was an error. So the initial checklist sent out to the Seneca County ebird rare bird alert for the snowy egret was in error with the DUNLIN. I corrected this. I totaled 63 species, but as a group this number likely is higher. Thanks to all who came along and a big thanks to Montezuma NWR for allowing these shorebird walks in the fall migration season!!! My ebird list for this outing can be found here (along with photos of the Snowy Egret): http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/email?subID=S38603820 <http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/email?subID=S38603820> Dave Nicosia -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
