Martha and I took a quick run up the lake skipping Myers (so missing Carl’s osprey!). A NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD was fluttering its wings on the way so easy to see as we drove up 34.
Long Point was barren though I did get my First of Year COMMON LOON off the north side in quite quiet water and relatively close. Other than that, 1 lone LESSER SCAUP M and 3 SCAUP (sp) F, 3 TREE SWALLOWs and a few BUFFLEHEAD. There were some dark fowl with light bills way out in the lake, so more likely Scoter than Coot but I just could not resolve them well enough to decide if they were White-winged, Black, or what. Otherwise, nothing! Union Springs big pond was more interesting though the grebes and wood ducks of last week were gone or hiding. Pairs of HOODED MERGANSER, RING-NECKED DUCK, BUFFLEHEAD, NORTHERN SHOVELER and AMERICAN COOT were seen there. Did not go down to Frontenac (fool, I). Then Mud Lock showed the BALD EAGLE on the nest, COMMON GOLDENEYE (pairs), TUNDRA SWANs, GADWALL (pairs), PILEATED WOODPECKER (2 flew over us and the lock to land on opposite side and called a bit). Water is much more open than last week, so many other waterfowl on water, ice floes, and I guess sand bars or other debris. We saw a pair of WOOD DUCKs sitting out of the water by themselves on some such protrusion. Harris Park offered distant but still spectacular views of what I think was reasonably a quarter million SNOW GEESE sitting mostly out of water, apparently on ice, but about 1/4 mi S of the parking lot at Railroad St. so definitely scope subjects. Also seen from there were my FOY MUTE SWANs (2 definite, maybe more) nearer shore. Across the lake were thousands or tens of thousands of mixed ducks, Scaup, Redhead, and Ring-necked identifiable but just too far away to spend much time on finding more interesting ones, plus the cold rain had just begun. At the Potato Barn, NORTHERN PINTAILs are still close by and doing a lot of chattering while foraging with MALLARDs. Snow Geese in relatively small numbers and TUNDRA SWANs were out in the fields or flying about with bouts of CANADA GEESE. It was raining harder now so we called it a day. 3 RED-TAILED HAWKs seen en route at different sites but did not spot any harriers today though those were seen along this same route last week. ChrisP -- 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/ --
