As I mentioned before, Tim Lenz, Hope Batcheller, and I took a trip around the lake today. Most of what we saw has already been posted, including the hybrid Aythya at Stewart Park (still there at dusk); RED-NECKED, EARED, and HORNED GREBES in Aurora (and Pied-billed in Aurora made four grebes); and at least three flyover ROSS'S GEESE at Harris Park in Cayuga. The diving duck numbers are incredible as usual in the open areas at the north of the lake, in the tens of thousands with all the usual species. We spent a little time around Montezuma proper, scanning through several hundred gulls at Tschache without finding anything different. Knox-Marcellus Marsh from East Road had hundreds of Canada Geese, and Tim found three CACKLING GEESE amongst them. A dozen GREEN-WINGED TEAL were feeding amongst the pintail and wigeon. As expected, the Savannah Mucklands on both sides of Rt. 31 were filled with waterfowl, most notable a huge gathering of SNOW GEESE, sometimes together in one or two enormous flocks and sometimes split up in several areas or in the air, but numbering at least 200,000 and probably more. Northern Pintail, Mallard, and American Black Ducks numbers were also stupendous here, though American Wigeons were a bit less numerous than might be hoped, and we failed to find a Eurasian, though we did see a few Northern Shovelers and two Mallard x American Black Duck hybrids. Although dwarfed by the Snow Goose numbers, TUNDRA SWANS were also as numerous as I have ever seen, and I counted 2400. At least three TRUMPETER SWANS were also present, and a PEREGRINE FALCON spent some time on a telephone pole to the north. At Carncross and Morgan roads in Savannah, pintail and other dabblers were also numerous, although nowhere near the concentrations in the Mucklands. On the way down the west side we saw two young male WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS offshore south of Sheldrake, but not a lot else on the calm lake. We also stopped by the area in Ovid where I had seen Short-eared Owls before and, as I suspected, were able to see at least three roosting in a spruce tree from the road.
We ended with about 75 species for the day. Good birding, 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/ --
