On Saturday morning, eleven birders joined me for a walk at the Dorothy McIlroy Bird Sanctuary in Summerhill. As Karen kindly mentioned earlier, this was the first of four free public walks over the weekend as part of the Finger Lakes Land Trust Spring Bird Quest (SBQ).
Including stops at the Land Trust's Etna Nature Preserve and the Genung Nature Preserve in Freeville, as well as the group walk, Bob McGuire and I found 60 species in a morning of pretty relaxed birding. See below for highlights from all three sites. Mark Chao _______________________________________ 1. Etna Nature Preserve Route 366 near Route 13, Etna 6:35-6:45 AM and 11:20 AM 19 species, including YELLOW-THROATED VIREO The Yellow-throated Vireo was quite a nice surprise, singing from somewhere across Fall Creek. Almost equally gratifying were easy encounters with House Wren, House Finch, and Downy Woodpecker, which, despite their ubiquity around town, have been very difficult to find during past SBQs. 2. Genung Nature Preserve Route 38, Freeville 6:50-7:05 AM and 11:15 AM 27 species, including PINE WARBLER, CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER, and BLUE-WINGED WARBLER Last year I missed Pine Warbler here, but today, Bob and I found it smoothly trilling right along the road, just where I had found it in May in past years. We did not walk the trail loop. 3. Dorothy McIlroy Bird Sanctuary Lake Como Road, Summerhill 7:30-10:30 AM 48+ species, including NORTHERN GOSHAWK, RUFFED GROUSE, YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO, RUBY-THROATED HUMMINGBIRD, ALDER FLYCATCHER, WILLOW FLYCATCHER, EASTERN KINGBIRD, WINTER WREN, EASTERN BLUEBIRD, BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER, YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER, OVENBIRD, NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH, and PURPLE FINCH. Before our group walk began, Bob and I heard a rather distant warbler singing up the slope and across the road from the beginning of Lane A by the road. The song consisted of four or five straight high notes, with no emphatic ending. I thought that this might be a very late boreal warbler (it sounded more like Cape May than Bay-breasted), but we couldn't confirm it by sight. In the sanctuary itself, we missed a lot of the songbirds that I would have expected, including Hermit Thrush, Blue-headed Vireo, Magnolia Warbler, and Canada Warbler. Still, I thought that the birding was nonetheless quite excellent. The greatest highlight was surely the Northern Goshawk. As we were just gathering in the parking lot, it rose up above the treetops and offered a brief but electrifying view of its steely gray underside and broad-winged shape. The bird then descended into the very center of the preserve and sounded several call notes. It was the first time I've ever heard the famed nesting call of this species -- pure and proud as a clarion but so penetrating as to be a little unsettling. Now I understand why many field guides say that the call sounds "wild." Also around the parking lot, we had scope views of a pair of Eastern Bluebirds tending a nest box and glimpses of two Yellow-billed Cuckoos (one flying across, one briefly perched in a gap in the foliage). In the woods, viewing was difficult as expected, but the Winter Wren's repeated singing kept us plenty entertained. Right by the platform, we saw five chickadees fledging one by one from a nest. They looked like adults except for their slightly shorter tails, yellow gapes, labored flight, and generally clueless demeanor. We also saw an active kingbird nest about 25 meters in front of us. We couldn't see much of the young in the cavity, except the rounded tops of their little heads. -- 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/ --