Hi all, Today I decided to checkout Jetty woods. As I entered the woods, I saw a Philadelphia Vireo feeding by itself.
As I was reaching the end of the walk, in a willow tree I saw two birds sitting on a branch about a foot apart, facing each other. One with yellow underside with streaks and a black tail tip and the other was all white underneath with sides of the tail having a black tip. I could identify them as a Magnolia and a Chestnut-sided warblers. They sat there for quite sometime. I should have changed my macro to tele lens to get a perfect picture of their undersides. There were a couple of chickadees also feeding nosily. To get a better view of the warblers I changed my position, when I saw the underside of a bird with a bright yellow, first I thought may be a tanager, but the yellow did not seem to fit, as the yellow was rather of a goldenrod yellow and the shape of the bird also did not fit the tanager. Then I got a better view of white belly and longer tail and thicker black beak. I knew I was looking at Yellow-breasted Chat. For quite sometime it foraged above me and I got only look of the underside. When it flew I could see its upper parts colors. by then the two warblers also became active and the birds were moving away from me and there was no way I could follow them as there was water in the vicinity. I quickly took out my Peterson's guide on my cell phone to confirm that I was looking at Yellow-breasted Chat. Then I walked up to the end of the jetty, where I saw Kingfishers, Great Black-backed Gulls, Caspian terns and I also heard probably two Spotted Sandpipers. On the return trip I went on the trail that leads through the woods to Stewart Park in the hopes of seeing the chat again. But I did not see it. But there were five or six darners. There was one mating pair and others were trying to get the mated female by continuously chasing the mated pair. There was also a Boyeria sp. I presume probably a Fawn Darner. Then there were four Warbling Vireos singing from various locations. I also saw four female Hummingbirds at various locations. One was visiting spider webs in the higher reaches of the canopy and neatly picking up the spiders from the web. At least I saw it get three spiders. A Green Heron and two woodducks were seen from the Swan Pen of the Stewart Park. Lastly, thanks to Jay, I did see the female Fiery Skipper. These are southern butterflies and seem to have established themselves in that area since last four years! Also saw two migrating Monarch butterflies along the inlet. Cheers Meena PS: On BTI 3 rd floor middle space (?) windows, there was a dead warbler, I think it was a young Blackburnian and had killed itself by colliding with the windows. Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 42.429007,-76.47111 http://www.haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ Ithaca area moths: https://plus.google.com/118047473426099383469/posts Dragonfly book sample pages: http://www.haribal.org/dragonflies/samplebook.pdf -- 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/ --
