Last week, I visited MNWR in search of blackbird black clouds. On Thursday morning I was there on the auto drive at civil light and spent time till about 15 minutes after sunrise as I had to head back to work. I had spectacular views of blackbirds rising from the marsh and heading out to feed in the morning.
So on Saturday, I was not quite sure if there would be yet black birds or not, deiced to give another try. So again I arrived at MNWR at the break of civil light and watched the mind boggling view. So here I have uploaded a small clip on you tube with the following description. On a foggy morning just before sunrise on March 17 2012, millions of blackbirds, mixture of Red-winged Blackbirds and Grackles were starting to form groups to take off of foraging. Sometimes, they formed waves like tornado clouds, at other time they were more like PCR plots or DA plots with several clusters of clouds. Some clouds overlapped, while others kept to themselves. It was difficult to predict from where they will rise. But between civil light, at least that is when I arrived and by sunrise most of the birds had left the marsh and most returned only just about fifteen minutes before sunset. Then marsh seemed empty except for a few local resident blackbirds by now that have taken up residence. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wir8JFXWkvk After that view, I felt greedy and wanted to get the blackbirds returning to marsh in the evening with sunset background. So deiced to spend rest of the day at MNWR as I did not want to come back to Ithaca and go back again. I visited various other locations in the northern Montezuma nothing much so very spectacular. At Carncross road, I heard two SANDHILL CRANES, several TREE SWALLOWS , SONG SPARROWS and five BLUE BIRDS were claiming territories. I listened to each and every song sparrow's songs and iedto distinguish them by song to kill time. At Marten's tract some one seemed to be camping in car, so I did not feel comfortable spending time there alone. But I did watch two Swallows on two nest boxes and chattering excitedly and there was no sign of bluebirds anywhere near by. Other locations I came up empty. Then I returned to Tschache and scanned all the ducks and scanned widgeons for a Eurasian and did not find it. An hour later Nutter and party arrived and Nutter finds EURASIAN WIDGEON in the pool far end. When I had scanned there were not so many Widgeons in that location :-( As I had not planned on spending full day at MNWR, I ran out of water and it was hot. So I headed to nice and easy gas station and returned with one gallon of water jug and there still another six to seven hours to kill before the blackbirds returned. Luckily I had two books in my car, one by Dennis Paulson on Eastern Odonates and then Barbara Kingsolver's Homeland. So I sat in the shade of the corral near visitor center and listened to and watched birds while I read the books. There were three song sparrows around the corral and listened to their song, now I feel confident that I may be able to recognize them if I heard them anywhere as they sang so many times. I also watched what Red-winged Blackbird males did when they were not claiming their property. They were pulling insects (I think) out of cattail cotton. While at the corral several SNOW GEESE flocks flew overhead. In one small group there was a very small goose, which I believe was a ROSS's GOOSE. In past few days I had scanned many snow geese flocks with thousands of birds and did not find a Ross's goose, but here in a small group there is one! I also saw a lone DOUBLE CRESTED CORMORANT flying north. Still I had an hour and half to kill before the birds came back. Breeze was lovely and fresh air, so it was just relaxing to sit and enjoy the surroundings. One hour before sunset, I drove on the auto drive and stationed near LaRue's Lagoon. As sun was getting low, shoveler's were getting their quota of food, all of a sudden a group of TREE SWALLOWS started skimming over water and catching insects. Then they all assembled on a tree, there were at least some 300+. I was hoping to keep an eye to see if they roosted on the tree or on the marsh. But by then slowly blackbirds started trickling in and I totally forgot about swallows. Most of the early birds did not head off to marsh, but stopped on tallest trees. They came down small groups, they landed on the banks of La Rue lagoon and had bath, but they were not clearly visible as there was tall grass or mud around them. Soon thousands started pouring in. They would land at one place and then the whole flock would rise and swirl around and land elsewhere. Again move from there and land elsewhere. This went on! After sunset from west incessant river of black birds poured in to the marsh. They went on and on till the Venus and Mars became visible and rest became darker. I decided it was time to call it a night! Hope you enjoy the spectacle of blackbirds! Cheers meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 http://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ -- 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/ --
