Hi all, Yesterday, I made a trip specifically for shorebirds to MNWR.
I was interested in seeing the Marbled Godwit, which would make my basin list to 308th species! In the morning I spent time at Salt point with Candace and Robin for the future trail preparation as we had already planned. Then I was planning to head to Montezuma immediately, but I found I had not got my water bottles. Plus, I thought light would be too much from wrong direction so decided to head home and wait till later in the afternoon. I headed for MNWR around 1.30 PM. I arrived at Knox-Marcellus around 2.30 PM. I found Jason Huck already watching the shorebirds. So he pointed me the direction of the Marbled Godwit. I looked and found one easily, it was feeding alone in an area without most of the other shorebirds, closer to Knox -Marcellus side. I watched it for sometime, it fed continuously while I watched it. It probed its beak sometimes partly into the mud and sometimes it poked its beak all the way in and ate lot of things. After watching it for a while, I started looking for other shorebirds, but light seemed too harsh. Jason told me he found more shorebirds closer to Tow-path road. So I decided to head there. The road is pot-holed or rather large pan-holed and lots of muddy patches filled with water. I arrived at the point where there was a good view of the marsh. But closer spot had very few birds, but among the few birds I found one BAIRDS SANDPIPER, which I determined that it was probably an adult in molting almost reached the winter plumage. I saw twice it scare the Semi-palmated Sandpiper, which froze when the Baird's came close to it. And Baird's had a posture, which I would consider as a threat posture. BTW, I found Obrien, Crossely and Karlson book does not have most of the shorebirds showing flight pictures, which I thought was rather annoying as they are one of the important characters for identifying shorebirds! Then I scanned the birds further ashore, where I found a flock of Short-billed Dowitchers (16) feeding vigorously. As I was scanning the other shorebirds, I soon found a bird which I knew was a different from form the other shorebirds, soon determined that to be a WILSON'S PHLALROPE. I watched its feeding behavior, which was very distinct. It fed in the manner it would feed while swimming, but only running instead of swimming. So later I decided I want to find it with my binoculars. I was able to pick it up by its behavior every time I scanned. Three birds looked like good candidates for White-rumped Sandpipers, but they never flew while I watched them. >From here I could see the American Pelican either sleeping or preening, which >would not be visible from the East Road if it was sleeping. Again, I went back to East Road to look for shorebirds. I did not find anything special till Ken Rosenberg and Paul arrived. Ken and Paul picked up lots of Stilt Sandpipers feeding far away from the shore. The behavior to look for as Ken described was oil drill machines. They feed like Dowitchers but every time after the feeding bout would rise up. I thought that was a very appropriate description. We rediscovered the Marbled Godwit, which had relocated itself among the other shorebirds halfway between Tow-path road and Knox-Marcellus, but was easy to locate. So it moves a fair bit. So if people are looking for it search the whole area. It was there till I left around 6.30 PM. It was a great day! 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/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/ --
