After returning from the Savannah Mucklands area this morning, I birded the Hawthorn Orchard on East Hill in Ithaca (located between Pine Tree Road, Mitchell Street, and the East Ithaca Recreation Way) from about 9:45 to 11:00am. It was fairly quiet, in part due to the cold, windy, damp conditions. I was extremely surprised to see that many of the hawthorn trees (Crataegus sp.) were in bloom. This could make for an interesting spring, because they usually don't bloom until mid-May.
Bird-wise, I heard/saw the following: 19 Yellow-rumped Warblers (6 in NE corner, 12 in SW corner, 1 in SE corner) 1 Palm Warbler (heard singing and moving rapidly along East edge) 1 Blue-headed Vireo (NE corner) 1 Ruby-crowned Kinglet ~15 White-throated Sparrows 2 Brown Thrashers (male and female, along gravel pathway that leads from the East Ithaca Recreation Way up to the southern rugby playing field) 1 Field Sparrow (flyover, flight notes) Heard an unidentified very rich, sweet-sounding, call note a few times that was very reminiscent of Hooded Warbler, but just couldn't locate the bird producing the sound. This was along the North slope that leads down into the ravine area from the NE corner. Good birding! Sincerely, Chris T-H -- Christopher T. Tessaglia-Hymes TARU Product Line Manager and Field Applications Engineer Bioacoustics Research Program, Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road, Ithaca, New York 14850 W: 607-254-2418 M: 607-351-5740 F: 607-254-1132 http://www.birds.cornell.edu/brp -- 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/ --
