Yesterday, 3.10.11. John & I were driving southeast (sorta') on Ridge Rd. to where it joins 34B north of Scipioville when I spotted an odd white bird on the ground in the cornfield. As we stopped, it flew up & landed in a tree in the hedgerow. The tail fanned beautifully in the wind. No wonderment there. RED-TAIL. Body was mostly white with a bit of dark feathers on the top of the head & wing tips.
We wondered if this was the same bird from a few yrs. ago .. oh, my ... it's been a good 10 yrs. ago .... so maybe an offspring. The one we had seen yrs. ago was farther north but who's to say how big the territory is??? Whatever, whoever, it was a beautiful sight & a real tret. Daughter Becky lives on Ridge Rd.. She called to say the corn field behind her place had a humongous flock of SNOW Geese that were putting on a show, up & down & around before heading off towards the lake, "yelping" as they went. Mon. afternoon she & I did a bit of cruising to Aurora & back. Saw a SCREECH OWL in a tree hollow where a rotted limb had broken off as well as the Factory St. one. The 15 TUNDRA SWANS & 2 MUTE SWANS & thousands of ducks & geese off the slush ice edge here in Union Springs section of the lake were mostly gone yesterday, probably because the wind was from the SSW. The MUTES are adults but a juvenile Tundra was with them yesterday. Saw no other swans but I suspect they might be in the Mud Lock area. The ice was all gone on Mon., except for slush along the shore. John & I started out Sherwood Rd. to look for Snows on the farm pond but when we saw the first pond was still frozen we didn't go the rest of the way. Hunters will scare them away. We found them on Owasco Lake 2 yrs. ago where the hunters couldn't get to them in the daytime.I assume they could go back to the cornfields in the evening. Becky reported seeing a Chickadee with its foot caught in some bark of a tree. It was frantically trying to get loose when a TITMOUSE attacked it repeatedly. She threw a snowball & the titmouse left. DD finally got loose & flew to the hedgerow bushes where the titmouse again tried to attack it but didn't pursue it as it flew farther away. BTW .... on the south side & next to the Be Happy Cafe in Union Springs is a new bakery called "The Sweetery ...". I haven't been in it so don't know the rest of the name but John already has stopped about 5 times & his sweet tooth is leading him to a flat wallet! Careful Susie, you might not get Steve out of there if you come this far north! Good birding, all. Fritzie -- 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/ --
