This afternoon John, daughter, Becky & I went where several others did, on the same quest .... Wykoff/Ovid ... no owls. Since we had in a past yr. seen a Snowy owl on Martin Rd. near the Finger Lakes Regional Airport south of Seneca Falls I went there, ever hopeful. NO owl but Becky spotted a SHRIKE in a bush behind that same old green tractor by that rattle-trap house next to the airport where we had seen the Snowy.
We drove south on 414 & left onto Ernsberger Rd. where an Amish farmer had spread manure yesterday. We saw many HORNED LARKS & a large flock of SNOW BUNTINGS. The larks were right close to the road & easily seen there. In other places they were in the road. Eventually we got to Wycoff Rd. where we saw HORNED LARKS, an A. PIPIT (right along the road shoulder, a very friendly little cutie) & what turned out to be LAPLAND LONGSPURS. Carol Keeler & Diana Whiting were there taking pictures & Diana asked if what she was looking at was a Longspur. We had been looking at the pipit .... no mistaking it .... but noticed a darker bird with it & later a couple more. After Carol & Diana left, Becky checked her Kaufman's & we felt sure it was a longspur. After getting home & checking bird notes for the day we thankfully had confirmation from Colleen's post that we had indeed seen longspurs. Diana did get a picture. (Dave Nutter's post just now came through reporting the pipit ... Thanks, Dave.) On our trip we saw 4 KESTRALS, 8 RT HAWKS & about a doz. Amish buggies being driven home from church. No heaters, I betcha! Oh, yes ... & an A. ROBIN. South of Cayuga Lake SP we saw maybe a couple hundred pillow swans on the ice (probably TUNDRA ) with the Canadas. At Mud lock we saw many more tundras & Canadas, at least 6 TRUMPETERS, COOTS & 2 C. MERGS. Screechie was in the Factory St. box in Union Springs. Gadwall, mallards & buffles were on both ponds but Mill also had redheads & Canadas plus Mill Pond had the light colored juvenile, streaked SNOW GOOSE that has been around a few days, first reported to us by Becky. Fritzie & Becky Blizzard Sewell -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
