Hi all, This week-end I lead trips for two groups on Saturday and Sunday. Almost same places were visited and results were quite different for both days. Saturday was very windy and Sunday was as someone called slight stiff and breezy.
Saturday highlights were a Northern Shrike in the same location where the bird club trip had seen a few weeks earlier, but this time shrike was little more co-operative than the previous sightings. Several of us got to see it through the scope and everyone saw it through binoculars till it disappeared into shrubberies. A very nice look at a female Kestrel on airport fence. same kestrel was seen today on a tree. Lake was very windy, even ducks wanted hide in the bay in sheltered areas. >From Ladoga point the birds were very close and we got a good comparison between Greater and Lesser Scaups along with other usual ducks. Sunday was a quite different seen. We got to see the Rough-legged Hawk and two Meadowlarks at the airport, plus a few hundreds of blackbirds. Cayuga lake near Salt Point bay had no ducks as two fisher men were in a boat nearby and gulls were also fewer as some woman was dog walking. While we were at Salt Point we found all gulls rise and fly over our head. On looking back we found a large raptor, an eagle was being followed by the gulls. I could not see its head as it was heading north, tail had no white in it. Overall, bird looked dark with not much of white on the wings or tail and it was beating wings methodically and headed straight north. I followed it in the scope for quite some distance and finally I managed to get the view of the upper side of the wings a couple of times, which seemed more like that of Golden Eagle pattern and impression on the tail was that it was not long. At some point I got glimse of head and seemed it had paler head. Dave Nicosia's group also saw it may be he will post what they saw. There was a group of 7 Red-breasted Mergansers, that alighted at the point, but got disturbed by something and continued flying further north. In the Marina we saw lots of Hooded Mergansers and a couple of Red-heads. At Ladoga Point, ducks were further ahead than yesterday, but there was another Red-breasted Merganser hanging around with a pair of Hooded Mergansers. No loons were on the lake. We did see three migrating Blue Herons. We also saw several different Mocking birds and a couple of them singing. Over all we had 50 species for today. For the week-end I saw about 60 species of birds. Not bad for a cold week-end. Cheers Meena 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/[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/ --
