I set off to the quarry on Hoster Rd Seneca County, to try for the GYRFALCON & within minutes of parking by clearing in spruce trees, I saw it flying towards quarry from north east. It flew around over the tallest mounds of stones circled a few times & made its way south west and eventually disappeared over Canoga Road.
I went and parked across Canoga Road on Hoster, south of Quarry & soon saw an adult BALD EAGLE flying towards me from the south east. Then I went back to Canoga turned left to go east and saw what was probably a RED-TAILED HAWK fly to the ground and catch something in the cornfield. it later flew up into a tree at the edge of the cornfield. Got some wind-shaken phone photos of the hawk. Then I went to the finger Lakes regional Airport to look for the reported SNOWY OWL. I didn’t see the snowy then, but did see a beautiful male KESTREL on the chain-link fence near the buildings which kept going down into the grass and catching something small that it seemed to eat. I returned to the quarry ~3:30 pm where many people were parked, and I looked up at the edge of the tallest mound of stones & right away saw the GYRFALCON perched there!! For a second I was afraid it was a pigeon. None of the others had spotted it until then, so I was glad I came back & saw it, because a young boy from Westchester Pennsylvania really wanted to see it & so he got to look through my scope at it. Life bird for him. He & his father were wearing their masks. Then starting north to go home, I thought I’d take one more look for the SNOWY OWL at the airport. I almost gave up when I saw there was a little red-light apparatus straight out in the cornfield by Martin Road, well to the right of the far end of the runway, that i should explore. It is quite far away and with my scope I could just make out a white, rounded shape & what I thought were the SNOWY owl’s feathers blowing in the wind. Laura and Ton came along then, saw me there, so stopped. And with their scope confirmed that it was indeed the SNOWY OWL! then I adjusted my scope & the wind died down and I saw the snowy owl very well in my scope too! What a holiday gift all these raptors gave me ❗️ Donna Scott Lansing Sent from my iPhone -- 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/ --
