Hi all, My today's primary goal was to look for blackbirds returning to the MNWR main pool marsh for roosting and I was not disappointed! Just before sunset they started arriving to the marsh. Most came from west of the marsh. I was standing at the bend south of North Spring pool. Several large flocks flew over my head. The width of some flocks were more than half a km wide and longer tha a km. When they poured over my head, it felt dizzying looking above at them. They passed in front of me in very fast movement. And sometimes in the middle of the flock some birds will dip down and the whole flock behind them followed the same motion creating up and downs in the rivers of blackbirds. When one such large flock passed me I was so excited, I did everything with my camera, zooming in and out and changing directions to follow the birds etc., except forgot to record the movie! When I realized this, I thought I will not get more one more chance like this. This flock must have had more than 10000 birds (just a guess) and I was cursing myself, but soon another one I could hear coming over the horizon. I had at least four such large flock, when they flew over north spring pool they covered most of the area of north spring pool! They were pouring into the marsh for at least an hour well after sunset. I cant imagine the din when they get up early morning and no idea how and when they would be leaving the roost. Also, late after dusk many SONG SPARROWS started singing and one had a very weird song, I first thought he might be some other kind of sparrow. They were all in shrubbery, as it became dark they came out to feed on the road and some ended up in marsh grass. I counted 21 of them!
When I was at Knox-Marsellus (KM) overlook watching other birds, two TREE SWALLOWS came up from the marsh and chattered over my head for a few seconds and went back to marsh! I tried to relocate them in vain. At KM, there were hundreds of PINTAILS, many RING-NECKED DUCKS, AM. WIDGEONS, and two RUDDY DUCKS. Many Canada Geese, but I could not find a single Cackling among them, but I did find two injured SNOW GEESE. Also, some 300 or so Tundra Swans. As I was pulling out two GREAT BLUE HERONS landed in to the marsh. I met a couple and they told me they saw two SANDHILL CRANES at Marten's tract today. There was also an immature BALD EAGLE sitting nearby. Many RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS were defending their property by declaring "My Properteee". A KILLDEER was also calling from somewhere nearby. Then I stopped at Tschache Pool. There same kinds of ducks as at KM, but I had great time watching a female of Am. Widgeon being courted by seven males. Of the seven males two birds had very shiny green eye-stripes and others were dull. She seem to be declaring that she liked one of the guys with dark green eye -stripe by bobbing her head vigorously. Initially he seemed bit at loss. She kept shaking her head in fast movements and often opened her beak as if telling the male she has made her decision. Often with beak movement she tried to scare the other males, while continuing her head shaking behavior to the male chosen. After may be 10 minutes two of the males decided they stand no chance so they walked away. But four other males persisted including one with darker green eye-stripe. Now the chosen male often started to try scare the other males. Chosen male and female swam or stopped close to each other, many times touching each other. At one point the chosen male pushed the females ahead from her sides twice gently. Both preened, I did not see them using preening gland secretion, but just rearrange the feathers by preening. This went on for more than half an hour, I got tired. They were far out in the middle of the pool, and was watching them with the scope, I wish I had digifilmed them. While this was going on, a group of four RUSTY BLACKBIRDS were also displaying to a female who was out of my site. Then I saw five TREE SWALLOWS come from May's Point pool and disappear in Tschache. Last but not the least, I did spend another 45 minutes with SNOW GEESE raft on Cayuga Lake on the way to MNWR. I am obsessed with the SNOW GEESE. There were at least some 6000 + Snow Geese, I did scan them for Ross's but came up empty. On the way back, it was already dark, I sopped at Cayuga Lake State park, the Snow Geese were still there but had moved to the middle of the lake. I still could hear their din even from that distance. Oh one more thing about snow geese, when more geese landed in large flock, they all would murmur very loudly. It was like waves receding and crashing. Once a gang of motor bikers passed along the road, most of them got alert and looked towards the road and had same loud murmur among themselves. Lastly, I was hoping for Auroral display as there was a possibility, but looks like it did not happen! But was a beautiful day! Cheers Meena PS: BTW, in the title I wrote Am. Widgeon Swayumwar. Swayumvar is a phenomenon in which female chooses a male from many suitors . This was very common in India around 2000 BC especially among royal princess. Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 http://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ -- 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/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/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/ --
