Hi all, Along with Wind River group of people I paddled Chemung River from Elmira to Wellsburg. It is quite scenic river at places kayak touching the bottom of the river.
As I was getting off of HWY 17 on to Water street, I saw three adult Bald Eagles, two of them tumbling together and third wanting to join them. Later on the river saw 4 individuals, do not know if they were the same ones or different. At one point when one of the adults took off in one direction, soon I heard screams from an Osprey. I guess Baldy had tried to snatch food from the osprey. A few minutes later saw the Osprey fly down along the river. There were Spotted Sandpipers all along the river, some were as pairs some were in groups of threes or fours. I would think probably about 40+ Sandpipers were seen along less than 7 mile stretch of the river. Several Killdeer were also seen one group consisted of 11 killdeer. Rough Winged Swallows skimmed along the river and one Eastern Kingbird had a clash with a swallow. Twenty five adolescent mergansers swam in front of us for quite some distance. Kingfishers were in good numbers along the river as were the Great Blue Heron. We saw only one Green Heron. There were a few Red-tailed Hawks circling over the river, one passed us fairly low over our heads. One Indigo bunting sang from somewhere along the river. Only warblers we heard were Common Yellowthroats. I was looking for some special river odes, but all I saw were common odes such as Tule Bluets, Dusky Dancers, several mating pairs landed on my boat. A beautiful Blue Dancer male sat on my arm and watched me for quite some time as I paddled along for a few minutes. Several Prince Baskettails zoomed around the boats picking insects disturbed by our boat. It looked like some females were also ovipositing. A nice mating pair of Dusky Dancers landed on my boat and rode for a few minutes. I did see a few large dragonflies, a common Green Darner, and may be two club tails and one possible Dragonhunter as he flew with great speed and a few skimmers. Overall, it was very nice relaxing floating along the river. Last couple of evenings I have been trying to find some quiet locations to record some stereo sound on my new mic. But planes have been very annoying. I spent one evening in Texas Hollow, which was definitely quieter than the Hammond Hill, but still a low flying plane dragged on and on for hours. I did get a very nice Wood Thrush, Kingfishers and a Catbird. Generally most of the birds have been very quiet. Another evening (yesterday) I tried to find some quiet location in Coddington area, I ended up going to dead-end roads and disappointed. On the way back however there was a beautiful sunset with thunderstorms and lightings. Meadowlarks, Eastern Kingbirds, Eastern Bluebirds, Savannah Sparrows and Bobolinks were the highlights. Meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY http://haribal.org/ http://picasaweb.google.com/ithmoths http://picasaweb.google.com/mharibal http://www.flickr.com/photos/91426...@n00/ -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
