This afternoon as I was watching a white-winged scoter all by itself on
Cayuga Lake, out from the Harbor Marina at the bottom of Basin St., 2
juvenile bald eagles came into view from near Carr's Cove, south of the
village & headed north towards me.
They did their rolling, chasing fight routine for a matter of minutes,
eventually being directly over me before flying NE & over Factory St.
pond & out of sight. Soon only one came back & flew south over the
lake. Becky & I have been seeing baldies more often this past summer &
fall, including an adult over Plaster Point on Fri., 28 Dec..
Prior to being at the marina I had been at Fontenac Park boat launch
watching the scoter when I noticed many ducks approaching from the
north. Soon thousands of Aythya were flying by. I didn't have time to
chase them southward but suspect they landed between Aurora & Dean's Cove.
While at the boat launch I had watched another "loner" bird that flew
only because of a boater coming in. It sat high in the calm water with
the neck straight & head erect. It had quite a lot of light color on
the side of its face/head. When it flew it ran on the water before
rising into the air. I would like to make this into a red-necked grebe
but I didn't see other colors clearly. As its feet raised from the water
the body seem rounder than those of ducks. It flew quickly westward but
not very high.
Lake-water level at Frontenac Park is finally back to winter normal but
surprisingly still high at Mud Lock & northwards, with water over the
banks in the river & canal. Canal level in Seneca Falls is high altho'
Van Cleef Lake looks fairly normal. There, we found 100s of Canadas on
29 Dec.. Becky & I are amazed to find, quite unlike previous yrs., no
ducks, geese or swans between Cayuga & Mud Lock except for a few ducks
very close to the eastern shoreline just north of Cayuga village. We
didn't go out along the RR tracks to look over the lake towards Cayuga
Lake SP where we have usually seen countless thousands of Aythya.
We didn't find any snowy or short-earred owls or white deer in our
travels on the 29th but did see several red-tailed hawks & a harrier.
Except for the usual feeder birds, the many crows & the large nos. of
Canadas flying over & plague of fuzzy-tailed rats, we notice the lack of
birds elsewhere. She has a lone pine siskin hanging around her feeders.
The greatest treat on 30 Dec. was seeing a magnificent young, red fox
that came down the bank behind the house & then went back up, probably
to one of the many woodchuck holes in the hedgerow or to an old barn
across the field.
Happy birdy new year to all.
Fritzie
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