Every year, in contemplating where to hold our group walks for the Finger Lakes Land Trust Spring Bird Quest (SBQ), I try to balance many factors -- representation of varied habitats, accessibility for the most birders, quality of viewing, and of course diversity of birds. For each of the past few years, Land Trust staff and I always decided on a safe lineup of renowned birding hotspots – the McIlroy Bird Sanctuary in Summerhill, Lindsay-Parsons Biodiversity Preserve in West Danby, the Goetchius Wetland Preserve in Caroline, and the Roy H. Park Preserve in Dryden. And every single one of these walks has been well-attended and fun.
This year, we decided to take a little risk and choose lesser-known sites mostly a little farther from Ithaca, perhaps with slightly lower prospects of bird diversity, in order to spotlight the Land Trust’s newest acquisitions and maybe attract some new SBQ attendees closer to their own neighborhoods. And so today, after Saturday’s walks in the eastern Skaneateles Lake watershed and yesterday’s hike at Logan Hill in Candor, we closed the weekend with a visit to the VanRiper Conservation Area in Romulus. This property, which the Land Trust acquired from Barry VanRiper and Sharon Moran at a discounted price in 2011, may well be the most serene public natural area on the entire shore of Cayuga Lake. But it remains underbirded, even by me. We had a fine turnout – 12 birders besides me, including Barry VanRiper himself. We began by crossing Route 89 to North Cayuga Lake Road, where a field of shrubs and young conifers forms the upland western part of the preserve. Here we found a FIELD SPARROW with food for nestlings, a cooperative EASTERN KINGBIRD, some BROWN-HEADED COWBIRDS looking admittedly sharp and nearly appealing along the sunlit roadside, and several INDIGO BUNTINGS on territories. I think that we heard male Indigo Buntings on five territories here, and briefly saw a few females as well. We discussed how male Indigo Buntings learn songs from their neighbors, not their fathers, and show greater aggression to unfamiliar songs than they do to songs in the local style. A couple of these songs did seem distinct from the others, with little trills in addition to paired complex notes, and there were more visible chases in these locations. Later, having crossed back over the highway, we descended to the lake. Here Mr. VanRiper pointed out a perfect, fresh round hole that we thought might belong to a Pileated Woodpecker family. Then, Marty Schlabach pointed out to me that in this very tree, there was another smaller hole, to which a female RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER had flown. We watched her, then her mate, deliver food to unseen peeping nestlings. On the lake itself, we saw two COMMON LOONS in nonbreeding plumage, single HERRING and RING-BILLED GULLS, a MALLARD pair and a mother with three ducklings, and a flyby PURPLE MARTIN. I think the most exciting lake bird was a PILEATED WOODPECKER, perhaps flying to the aforementioned round hole. It was a strange view indeed, with nothing behind the woodpecker except water, incongruously like a Sooty Shearwater or some such thing over the ocean. The surpassing highlight here on the shore was several Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies sipping mineral-rich water from the sand and gravel, all lit up in the sun. Completely heedless of our presence, they gave us 20+ minutes of dazzlingly intimate views, fluttering and feeding within touching distance, as if some benevolent lake deity had cast a charm over the place and all of us. We could even see the butterflies excreting dewy droplets, presumably purified of salts, from the tips of their abdomens. (We saw a few fast-flying dark swallowtails and a White Admiral here too, but they did not pause as the Tiger Swallowtails did. Throughout the morning, we also saw Common Ringlets, Clouded Sulphurs, Little Wood-Satyrs (at the time I grossly misidentified these as Eyed Browns -- sorry), Pearl Crescents, and Juvenal’s Duskywings.) Then, as we climbed back to the parking lot, we found our 37th and last bird species of the morning – a HOODED WARBLER singing close to the southern part of the trail loop. We could see this bird moving, but almost always behind the first layer of trees. Our one unobscured view of this bird at rest was brief and inconveniently steep, but enough for some to see its black throat, yellow face, and yellow underside. What a beautiful day! What a great spot! And what a wonderful region we live in! In the end, my species tally for the whole SBQ weekend stands at a record-low 65, but considering the heat and lateness of Memorial Day, not to mention a Lincoln’s Sparrow and 11 warbler species and those butterflies and 50+ human participants including three former owners of lands now held as Land Trust preserves, I feel very good about how this year’s unusual bird-walk slate turned out. Here is a small photo album of highlights. https://goo.gl/photos/u1pdCgdQnFKaEEc18 Many thanks to all participants and to the Finger Lakes Land Trust for a marvelous weekend! 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/ --
