I spent about 3.5 hours out in the yard this morning searching for any migrants that might pass ahead of the rain that was forecast to fall in the morning. One of the first birds I saw (around 7 AM, which was 10 minutes after sunrise, local time) was a Sharp-shinned Hawk that had attracted the attention of a number of American Crows. The Sharpie was doing small loops over my house about 50 feet up, and there were 3 Crows that were kind of following it around. With each pass, it seemed that more crows would gather around the hawk until there were 8 of them following the Sharpie around. A few of the crows would dive at the hawk, and the hawk would return the favor, but neither really seemed too intent on doing any damage, and after a few minutes, the Sharpie passed on and the crows dispersed.
Just as I have noticed in the past few Septembers, there was a significant movement of Blue Jays this morning over my house. They passed over in multiple waves and at several different elevations, with most moving east to west, which is typical of Fall migration movement here at this end of Oneida Lake. A few, however, were moving west to east, which I thought was odd, but I am pretty sure that most of those eventually turned themselves around and moved in the right direction. Anyway, in a little over 3 hours, I counted 1,309 Blue Jays pass by. The only other species moving in any numbers this morning were Monarch butterflies – I counted 26 of them within the same time span. Otherwise, the only other migrants I came across today were 1 White-throated Sparrow, 1 Black-and-White Warbler, another Sharp-shinned Hawk, a Red-eyed Vireo, a Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and 1 Great Blue Heron. I did have a flock of 15 Cedar Waxwings fly over too, but I think they were local birds. Later in the afternoon, around 4:30, there was an Osprey and 2 Bald Eagles flying just ahead of the line of showers associated with the cold front that finally passed through the area. Mickey Scilingo Constantia Oswego County, NY mickey.scili...@gte.net 315-679-6299 -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
