Thirteen people went out today for a half-day field trip. After a brief stop to look for Peregrine Falcon at Bradfield Hall, with no luck, we headed down to East Shore Park. Here we saw a variety of waterfowl, though not in the huge numbers that have recently been seen. We had good looks at Common Mergansers and Lesser Scaup close in, and Canvasbacks among the Redheads. This turned out to be a good spot for identifying both females and males of these waterfowl. Common Goldeneye were out a little farther and Paul also spotted a Common Loon.
We next headed up to Myers Point Marina, where we saw Gadwall, a female Hooded Merganser, more Lesser Scaup and Black Duck in with the Mallards. Susan spotted a beautiful Northern Pintail. Groups of Common Goldeneye not far offshore were doing their head-throw displays which were a lot of fun to watch. The water was very calm on this side of the point. Out at the spit, it was much windier and cold, but there we saw a group of Tundra Swans before they took off in flight. A raft of Redheads was visible North of Salt Point, but too far away for us to pick through. >From Myers, we went out to Davis and Mahaney Roads looking for Horned Larks and Snow Buntings, and were disappointed not to find any, even at Belltown Dairy. As we continued to Center Road, Ken saw one Horned Lark; it perched briefly on a corn stalk for us. We could hear a few others and saw two more fly by, but wished that the flock had been larger, and that they had stuck around long enough for everyone to see. After our rather disappointing search for field birds, we went over to Algerine Road for Wild Turkeys. At first, it looked like we had struck out here as well, but there were 7 turkeys far in the back field. This was the first birding field trip that Ken and I have led. We very much enjoyed the company of everyone in the group! Diane Morton & Ken Kemphues -- 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/ --
