[cayugabirds-l] Snow Geese and a magical moment in the sun

2015-12-20 Thread Sandy Wold 
Today, I found myself very fortunate to be looking up just as a glorious
flock of Snow Geese flying high, so high I could not hear them, and flying
southbound.  Hundreds of geese glistened and sparkled like jewels in the
bright sun.  I savored this sight for less than two minutes, until their
angle of reflection changed.  About 200-300 individuals danced through the
sky in a loose but connected formation of V's and v's which rippled about
but stayed connected.  It was nothing less than spectacular!  Seen from
Cascadilla Gorge, Fall Creek this morning around 8:30AM.

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[cayugabirds-l] Snow Geese and a magical moment in the sun

2015-12-20 Thread John and Fritzie Blizzard 
And I saw hundreds heading south this afternoon about 3 p.m. just east 
of our house on the east edge of Union Springs village. These were the 
1st I've seen this _FALL_ ... ha, ha ... tomorrow is _WINTER_!

Fritzie

On 12/20/2015 7:08 PM, Sandy Wold wrote:
> Today, I found myself very fortunate to be looking up just as a 
> glorious flock of Snow Geese flying high, so high I could not hear 
> them, and flying southbound. Hundreds of geese glistened and sparkled 
> like jewels in the bright sun.  I savored this sight for less than two 
> minutes, until their angle of reflection changed. About 200-300 
> individuals danced through the sky in a loose but connected formation 
> of V's and v's which rippled about but stayed connected.  It was 
> nothing less than spectacular! Seen from Cascadilla Gorge, Fall Creek 
> this morning around 8:30AM.
> --


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[cayugabirds-l] today's bird notes

2015-12-20 Thread Meena Madhav Haribal 
Hi all,

Today I wanted to check the performance of a new teleconverter to my video 
camera. So I decided to go to Cornell dump and try some gulls.


As I was at the corner of the Dodge road and Stevenson Road, I saw a Red-tailed 
Hawk sitting on a fence and there were three Turkey Vultures in the pheasant 
pen. So I thought they were waiting to eat some dead thing in the pen.  I 
pulled my car to the side and got my camera out and took some pictures and 
video. Around that time a car passed very near it. The hawk did not budge. Soon 
it turned towards the pen and flew through the grass setting several pheasants 
in flight. I still thought it was trying to grab something dead. Then it flew 
again to another spot and tried to grab a live pheasant, which escaped. Then I 
realized it was trying to get one. And the vultures were waiting in the hopes 
of red-tail killing one. I spent next half an hour watching and taking video of 
the hawk. It made 7 to 8 passes at the pheasanst and every time the pheasants 
escaped.  Finally it decided to sit in the pen. I spent next ten minutes and 
there was no movement, so I deiced to move on along the dirt road hoping to 
look for gulls. To my surprise there were almost no gulls at the dump except 
for a few of them.  I headed back and on the way back I found the redtail was 
sitting on a tree. At my approach it moved to another tree further away. 
Finally, the hungry hawk was unsuccessful and deiced to give it up. I always 
thought they took the weaker or dead ones, I did not think they hunted for a 
live pheasant!


>From here I decided to try my camera in the arboretum where I know there are 
>generally  lots of fruit eating birds hanging around the crab apples. When I 
>reached the spot I did not see a single bird.  I drove around the road and at 
>one location I found there were lots of birds near another grove of crab 
>apples. Here I spent almost an hour watching and taking pictures of the 100s 
>of Cedar waxwings and several of American Robins. Starlings never gave me a 
>chance to photograph them. I have never been successful ever.

One of the Robins after eating some fruits rested and slowly started singing 
softly as if humming. I could hear him, never saw his mouth open but by the 
movements of his tail and his gently rising and falling breast one could say he 
was singing. After some time he stopped singing and yawned a couple of times. 
Around four pm all of a sudden all robins and waxwings flew away together to 
north of the plantations. I first thought probably there was a hawk or 
something that scared them. I looked around and found nothing. May be it was 
just time to get to ready to go to bed.


I was returning home, near the Cornell Orchards store on 366 I found lots of 
Starling sitting on wire and some of them were coming down to a crab apple 
tree. So I thought I might have a chance to photograph. I stopped there I was 
still trying to get my gear ready. Lots of starlings were on wire sitting 
pretty close to each other. One of the starling decided to land in between to 
two closely sitting starling. This made one starling move to the right a bit 
and that made the next starling move to the right. That ended up in a chain 
reaction where some twenty starlings one by one moved to the right in the form 
of ripple effect till there was no starling in the immediate vicinity. It was 
so amazing to watch as they hopped aside one by one to make space for the 
other. That was so cute! I thought these guys are very cooperative!   I wish I 
could have filmed the whole episode but was little too slow to catch this 
effect.


As I got out of my car in my driveaway, a Hairy Woodpecker was making known his 
presence to me by calling loudly.


Cheers

Meena


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




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[cayugabirds-l] Equine Research Park area, Sun 12/20

2015-12-20 Thread Mark Chao 
I’ve walked to Cornell’s Equine Research Park three times over the past two
weekends from Freese Road.  On my first two visits, I found several
cooperative EASTERN BLUEBIRDS around the horse corrals, but surprisingly, I
saw none today.  Maybe it was too late in the day.  Also on two visits,
I’ve found a female RING-NECKED PHEASANT at the interface of the Liddell
Lab pond vegetation and one of the open fields.  And today at around 3:15
PM, a GREAT HORNED OWL was hooting from towering conifers south of the
southeasternmost horse corral.



eBird (on my phone via the new Android app) didn’t question the owl or the
pheasant, but did give me the coveted “confirm” prompt for my count of 23
TURKEY VULTURES.  All these birds were drifting south at around 3:40 PM.
The last one had a white outer left wing.



Mark Chao

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[cayugabirds-l] Baltimore Orioles @ Salt Point now.

2015-12-20 Thread Lee Ann van Leer 
Kevin and I were checking out Salt Point when I saw a confusing flash of orange 
that turned out to be a Baltimore Oriole. Kevin has photos. 

Sent from my iPhone
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Re: [cayugabirds-l] OT: Snowy Owl Seneca Falls Seybolt Rd

2015-12-20 Thread Suan Yong 
The snowy owl was present at 11:30 when I arrived at Seybolt Road, on the gas 
pipe installation across from Reese Road about 300 yards out. Semi-recognizable 
with binoculars; much better with a scope. It swiveled its head quite 
frequently, keeping a lookout in several directions, before presently jumping 
behind the cement block on which it had been perched, and out of sight.

There was also a small flyby skein of snow geese while I was there - flying 
east to west - and many larger ones moments earlier further south as I was 
driving up - those flying west to east.

Suan


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Re: [cayugabirds-l] Baltimore Orioles @ Salt Point now.

2015-12-20 Thread Donna Scott 
I didn't see B. Orioles at Salt Pt, but I did see a RUFFED GROUSE, NORTHERN 
FLICKER, & NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD, along w E. STARLINGS, & MALLARDS & gulls & C. 
Geese. 
Donna Scott
Sent from my iPhone

> On Dec 20, 2015, at 12:25 PM, Lee Ann van Leer  wrote:
> 
> Kevin and I were checking out Salt Point when I saw a confusing flash of 
> orange that turned out to be a Baltimore Oriole. Kevin has photos. 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> --
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> 
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