Took a trip around Cayuga Lake today with Nancy Morgan and Courtney Moore. First stop was Sheldrake. It was windy with choppy waves and not much seen. A couple greater black backed gulls, 1 ring-billed gull and several mallards. The horned grebe that Nancy had here a few days ago was not seen.
Next stop was Lower Lake Road near the edge of the lake ice. This was where most of the action was. There were literally "clouds" of snow geese over the middle of the lake. In addition, there were numerous redheads, several lesser scaup, gadwall, mallards, black ducks, common goldeneye, hooded mergansers, numerous ring-billed, herring and greater black backed gulls. There were probably 50-75 tundra swans. We also had a couple flyover horned larks here. On the other side of the lake, at Harris Park, there were at least 500 common goldeneyes among many gulls, canada and snow geese, and tundra swans. At the North Pond, Union Springs there was a nice raft of redheads with close views. also bufflehead, ring-necked duck, gadwall, mallards, black duck and 3 AMERICAN COOT. The Factory Street Pond did not yield the screech owl today. Also in Union Springs we got a great look at a MERLIN in the top of a tree. He just sat for 10 minutes as Nancy and Courtney clicked many photos of this handsome bird. >From an overlook of the lake from route 90 between Union Springs and Aurora there were 3 large very dense rafts of waterfowl, probably 10,000 or so. At times, the birds were flying and it looked like a swarm of insects. The birds were too distant to see any field marks, but I suspect they were redheads and other Aythya species. In any event, the shear numbers were impressive. At the Aurora Wells College Boat House, we had 1 female canvasback with an injured wing and a female scaup sp. There were also common goldeneyes canadian geese and gulls there as well. No eared or horned grebe found today. On lake road, past Long Point St Park, we got great views of a northern harrier hovering over the extensive grasslands. We ended up seeing 2 more harrier between Lake Road and Ithaca. Back at Stewart Park, distant scoping was hampered by heat shimmer. Did not see the king eider today. Closer in, near the edge of ice, there were many gulls as usual. Among the usual herring, ring-billed and greater black backed, found 1 ICELAND GULL and 2 LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS. All in all, a nice day with 47 species to start 2011. Happy New Year to all. Dave Nicosia Johnson City, NY -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/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/ --