Presented with many birding options this morning, my son Tilden didn't hesitate - he wanted to go to Montezuma NWR. Over the years, I've been losing the motivation to drive up there regularly, but Tilden alone has enough enthusiasm for two. Just a few miles into the trip, he burst out, "I love Monty! Monty is great! You can just drive around and see things EVERYWHERE!" And then he laughed with greedy but sincere and contagious glee.
We made a couple of stops along the way. Along Burdick Hill Road at about 9:40 AM, Bill and Carol Klepack and we saw a few EASTERN MEADOWLARKS by the lone tree in the southern field, plus T's first NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD of the year and three distant BROAD-WINGED HAWKS rising on a thermal and drifting away to the north. Not long afterward, we stopped at Lake Road in Ledyard for more viewing of grassland birds. To my modest surprise, we saw and heard four male BOBOLINKS in the tree behind the lone house on the north side of the road. At least one was singing. Before today, I'd never seen Bobolinks remaining so stationary and positioned so high for so long. It seemed obvious that there are no females around yet to fight over. Here we saw and heard a few more meadowlarks, as well as some SAVANNAH SPARROWS. At the MNWR visitor center, we divided an hour among the pleasures of watching PURPLE MARTINS, GREATER and LESSER YELLOWLEGS, DUNLINS in breeding plumage, many GREEN-WINGED TEAL, and a few BLUE-WINGED TEAL. We saw both of these dabbling species again, plus NORTHERN SHOVELERS and GADWALL, at both Larue's Lagoon and Benning Marsh. Two CASPIAN TERNS flew slowly southbound above the Seneca River. We also saw heard a VIRGINIA RAIL across from Benning, issuing its typical penetrating percussive call. By the time we reached the end of the Wildlife Drive at 1 PM, we were both quite satisfied and suddenly very tired, so we decided to retire for the day as winners and head home. But we did get a few bonus encounters en route - both accipiter species, Jeff Gerbracht and SFO participant Gundi (who told us of their exciting day at Braddock Bay), and a dish of incomparably excellent ice cream at the Cayuga Lake Creamery. Mark Chao -- 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/ --
