On Monday morning, I found 3+ FOX SPARROWS behind the hedgerow under the power lines on the Dryden side of Sapsucker Woods, just at the entrance of the forest where the shrubs catch drifts of oak leaves. I saw the three in a single binocular field, including two perched within a body width of each other for a long time, but I feel that there could well have been more. I also found a lot of GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS and several PURPLE FINCHES throughout the sanctuary.
There continues to be regular activity in our screech-owl box in northeast Ithaca, with a pair of birds alternately appearing somewhat often at the hole of the box, looking busy and mighty cute. And I'm very glad to see them, except maybe for one thing. They're not owls. They're White-breasted Nuthatches. After I last saw a pair of owls in the box and posted about them three weeks ago, I continued to see one owl throughout the next week, but almost exclusively at dawn and dusk. This pattern was consistent with documented roosting schedules of screech-owl females at the onset of incubation. On one very hot day, I saw an owl come to the hole of the box in mid-afternoon, with some fluffy contour feathers oddly fanned out behind the owl's head - also consistent with my wishful idea of a female thermoregulating for optimal incubation. Then, two weeks ago, I saw an owl exiting the box at dusk, flying all the way across our yard and off to the east. That was the end. No more owl sightings since. It's disappointing, yes, but I like to think that the pair is somewhere better, maybe not far from here, waiting for their eggs to hatch. And I'll be watching the nuthatches with interest. Mark Chao -- 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/ --
