I agree with Chris T-H in welcoming reports from beyond the Cayuga Lake Basin, especially big, rare, easy-to-ID-from-a-respectful-distance birds like Snowy Owls, but also anything wild-bird-related which is unusual or interesting to you the writer/observer.
I just want to set the record straight about the Cayuga Lake Basin: It is not just the land which drains into Cayuga Lake. It also includes some land immediately to the north of the Cayuga Lake drainage which drains north into the Seneca River instead of draining east into Owasco Lake or west into Seneca Lake. It also expands at the Seneca River, somewhat arbitrarily, east to just north of Weedsport and west beyond Waterloo and barely into Ontario County. It then extends north, in a more principled fashion, to include all the land which drains south into the Seneca River or Clyde River instead of draining directly north into Lake Ontario.
As Bob McGuire noted, this is all on a map by Wiegand and Eames, botanists who published it in a textbook in 1926. The area they delineated encompasses the entire Montezuma Wetlands Complex as well as some interesting ponds especially to the west and a good chunk of the world-class drumlin field to the north. Those drumlins do screwy things to the drainage, though, and make the north border look pretty ragged. Wiegand and Eames were interested in plants, but ecology being what it is, a whole lot of cool birds show up in the basin as well. I wish I had a link to the actual map to provide here.
By the way the Cayuga Lake Basin does not include the drainage of Seneca Lake, even though it is the source of the Seneca River, which flows into Cayuga Lake, nor, of course, the drainage of Keuka Lake, which flows into Seneca Lake.
--Dave Nutter
Good morning,
Regardless of whether a Snowy Owl is in or out of the drainage system for the Cayuga Lake Basin, or elsewhere in the immediately surrounding Finger Lakes Region, there are many subscribers on Cayugabirds-L, as well as readers online who are not active subscribers of this eList, who would appreciate sightings being reported on Cayugabirds-L.
Please *do* post sightings of interest, even if birds are "Out of Basin" ("OOB") to those who participate in the yearly David Cup birding competition (limited to the drainage system for the Cayuga Lake Basin).
Cayugabirds-L is not limited to sightings in the Cayuga Lake Basin; instead, it simply has a focus on Cayuga Lake as well as the surrounding areas.
Thanks and good birding!
Sincerely,
Chris T-H
Chris Tessaglia-Hymes
Listowner, Cayugabirds-L
Ithaca, NYOn Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 8:58 AM, bob mcguire <[email protected]> wrote:
Once again (Wednesday AM), several of us would appreciate any timely reports of Snowy Owl in the CL Basin. The year is about to end and we are (shamelessly) trying to fill out our Basin lists!
Any of you shoppers out there, is the young bird still present at the Outlet Mall?
Bob McGuire
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