Thanks Mark and Jay for posting after my phone calls. There were in total 7 AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVERS in the newly-harvested potato fields along Rt 31 in the Mucklands. Five of them were adults in various stages of molt and two were freshly-minted juveniles. They were between 100 and 200 feet south from the road. At one point they all took flight and flew around for a good 10 minutes before finally settling back onto the field they started from.
About two hours before that I walked out to the south pond at the Montezuma Audubon Center, an area now dubbed "Sandpiper Shallows", to look for the reported golden plover. As I arrived a Merlin swooped in and scattered a small number of peeps and several Killdeer. The remaining yellowlegs and plover simply hunkered down and scowled at the Merlin. On close examination, and after finally seeing it fly, I was able to say that the plover was a juvenile BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER. White tail, cap no darker than the neck. There may well have been a golden plover there yesterday afternoon, but it was gone today. Bob McGuire 46 Whitted Road, Ithaca 256 0460 [email protected] -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES Archives: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
