I walked to Stewart Park yesterday afternoon. It was a successful quest for Chris T-H's reported LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULLS (I saw only one on the ice shelf but 2 among RING-BILLED GULLS resting on Newman golf course) and AMERICAN PIPITS (I got a good scope view of 2 on the flotsam field north of the swan pond, but I think there were at least 10 such dickey-birds flying around). As reported in Saturday's balmier weather, I also saw 3 TREE SWALLOWS over the mouth of Fall Creek, and after I returned to watch a large ice floe plough downstream to the lake, a had a brief glimpse of an EASTERN PHOEBE in the streamside brush near the Cascadilla Boathouse.
Picking out waterfowl on the roiling muddy lake was nauseating, but on the creeks there were lots of HOODED MERGANSERS, several COMMON MERGANSER pairs, and a few stray Aythya individuals, plus 3 pairs of shy WOOD DUCKS. I tallied 14 each of GREEN-WINGED TEAL and AMERICAN WIGEON, (no Eurasians, at least among the males!) mostly on pools within the golf course, but no Blue-winged Teal for me. On Cayuga Inlet between the golf course and Treman Marina I saw a male BUFFLEHEAD whose left cheek was patterned much like a female, with the white of the auriculars nearly surrounded by the black. Overhead were 3 flocks of 10, 11, and 7 SNOW GEESE, but surprisingly of the 28 birds only 2 were white, the rest were "BLUE" GEESE.
Among raptors were a RED-TAILED HAWK on a nest in the golf course while its presumed mate coursed the sky over the parks, a nearly adult BALD EAGLE who went back and forth between the narrow remaining ice shelf of Stewart Park and some attraction at Treman, whose ice appears confined to the marina, a TURKEY VULTURE southbound near Cornell, and an immature PEREGRINE FALCON on the aforementioned flotsam field, but escorted off by a couple of RING-BILLED GULLS before I saw the AMERICAN PIPITS arriving or returning there. Perhaps it had been hunting them. At one point it grabbed and took flight with a stick and appeared to be biting it. The falcon was so gray that I braced my scope against a tree to get a clearer image of the bold, sideburned facial pattern. It was very windy out there.
There were plenty of COMMON GRACKLES in the brushy woods places, but no Rusty Blackbirds, nor did I find any Red-wingeds.
Picking out waterfowl on the roiling muddy lake was nauseating, but on the creeks there were lots of HOODED MERGANSERS, several COMMON MERGANSER pairs, and a few stray Aythya individuals, plus 3 pairs of shy WOOD DUCKS. I tallied 14 each of GREEN-WINGED TEAL and AMERICAN WIGEON, (no Eurasians, at least among the males!) mostly on pools within the golf course, but no Blue-winged Teal for me. On Cayuga Inlet between the golf course and Treman Marina I saw a male BUFFLEHEAD whose left cheek was patterned much like a female, with the white of the auriculars nearly surrounded by the black. Overhead were 3 flocks of 10, 11, and 7 SNOW GEESE, but surprisingly of the 28 birds only 2 were white, the rest were "BLUE" GEESE.
Among raptors were a RED-TAILED HAWK on a nest in the golf course while its presumed mate coursed the sky over the parks, a nearly adult BALD EAGLE who went back and forth between the narrow remaining ice shelf of Stewart Park and some attraction at Treman, whose ice appears confined to the marina, a TURKEY VULTURE southbound near Cornell, and an immature PEREGRINE FALCON on the aforementioned flotsam field, but escorted off by a couple of RING-BILLED GULLS before I saw the AMERICAN PIPITS arriving or returning there. Perhaps it had been hunting them. At one point it grabbed and took flight with a stick and appeared to be biting it. The falcon was so gray that I braced my scope against a tree to get a clearer image of the bold, sideburned facial pattern. It was very windy out there.
There were plenty of COMMON GRACKLES in the brushy woods places, but no Rusty Blackbirds, nor did I find any Red-wingeds.
--Dave Nutter
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