I had a couple of high-quality encounters with LINCOLN'S SPARROWS in the Freese Road gardens on Friday morning. In the tidiest of the southernmost plots, just where I saw one Lincoln's Sparrow the other day, I watched two simultaneously on adjacent posts this morning. It was the first of my many Lincoln's Sparrow quests ever rewarded with a sighting of two at once. One of these sparrows issued flight calls at least four times while perched. Another highly similar call came from further south, as if responding.
Later, along the line of trees at the lip of the ravine, I had another lucky sighting of Lincoln's Sparrow. This one perched twenty feet away for several minutes, stretching occasionally but mostly just relaxing and looking blank. Then it flew into the deep grasses south of the gardens, where it seemed to stay perfectly still again, creating no movement in the vegetation. Otherwise, the variety of birds was about what one would expect - many Song Sparrows, several Field Sparrows, a few Savannah Sparrows, one Swamp Sparrow, several Indigo Buntings, and one western PALM WARBLER preening itself for a long time in the same plot as the Lincoln's Sparrows. Jay McGowan told me that he also saw a WHITE-THROATED SPARROW and a CHIPPING SPARROW; both are firsts of the season here for either of us. Then I paid a brief visit to the Dryden side of Sapsucker Woods. Despite last night's big wave of thrushes, I found only an honorary Catharus (an OVENBIRD) but no real ones south of the gated trailhead. I also found a two very bright BLACKPOLL WARBLERS under the power lines and a rather late BROAD-WINGED HAWK circling over the woods. Mark Chao -- 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/ --
