Cayugabirders, I watched an interesting female goldeneye for a while this morning about 1/4 mile south of Long Point State Park on Lake Rd., Ledyard (east side of Cayuga Lake). The bird appears to me to be at least partly Barrow's Goldeneye, though I had some views that I have a hard time reconciling with that ID. So, while I am pretty confident that it is not "just" a yellow-billed Common Goldeneye, I am uncertain that it is a pure Barrow's (ie possibly a female hybrid, which I suspect would be difficult/ impossible to visually diagnose with certainty in this species pair). When I first saw the bird, the pale orange bill (with duskiness around the nares) caught my eye - the bill appeared shorter and shallower than nearby Commons (most of which had the typical black bill with pale nail area). Head shape initially looked quite good for Barrow's, with a steep forehead and rounded look, with a bit of a mane, and the head size appeared relatively smaller than nearby Commons as well. However, as I watched it longer, the bird's head shape did not remain consistently Barrow's-like, and I lost a bit of confidence that it is a pure female Barrow's. In any event, I thought I would share some [mediocre] photos and encourage others to go look for/ at this bird - if I can get back up there this weekend, I'll post any further thoughts/ discussion. There were about 300 goldeneye today with a nice mix of other ducks near Long Point. A huge Redhead (etc) flock was in Aurora Bay very close to shore as well.
Goldeneye photos - http://picasaweb.google.com/jaegermaster/NewYork2010 Good luck, Tom -- Thomas Brodie Johnson Ithaca, NY [email protected] mobile: 717.991.5727 -- 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 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
