My sister Perri and I took a trip up to Montezuma today (28 May 2010). At Myers Point we encountered a goodly section of Basin birders, but not too many birds. A young male Bufflehead and a few Purple Martins on the houses across the lake were the only birds of note while we were there. From Myers Point to Montezuma, we encountered seven singing ORCHARD ORIOLES (two at Myers, one on Lake Road S, one south of Long Point S.P., one at Long Point, one near the bluffs on Lake Road N, and one at Mud Lock.) On Lake Road in Ledyard we also had four singing GRASSHOPPER SPARROWS (three near the last house before the woods on the southern arm of Lake Road and one in the field by the bluffs overlooking Aurora Bay.)
We met Andrew VanNostrand at the visitor center at Montezuma where we had the best bird of the day, a nice male RED-NECKED PHALAROPE. After we watched it for about 15 minutes, it took off circled the pool once before heading north out of sight over the main pool. The only other shorebirds here were two Lesser Yellowlegs and a Spotted Sandpiper. Knox-Marsellus from East Road was devoid of shorebirds on our first swing by, though we had four Semipalmated Plovers, one Semipalmated Sandpiper, five Least Sandpipers, and a Killdeer later in the day. Black Terns were plentiful as usual, with several individuals seen at Mays Point, Tschache, Knox-Marsellus, and Van Dyne Spoor. Tschache was well populated with 100 Great Blue Herons and 13 Bald Eagles. In addition to a few Black Terns, the marsh at Van Dyne Spoor had American Bittern, Pied-billed Grebe, Common Moorhen, American Coot, and Marsh Wren. Two adult SANDHILL CRANES were foraging in one of the drier fields nearby. At Carncross Road we saw two adult and two colt SANDHILL CRANES foraging together out in the grassy field. A Vesper Sparrow was still singing from the first field on Morgan Road. Jay McGowan Dryden, NY -- 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/ --
