Hi all, To take advantage of beautiful weather, I decided to head to Derby Hill to see the raptors. On the way I stopped at an Indian grocery store in Syracuse. So by the time I reached Derby Hill it was almost 2.00 PM. As I was pulling in Gray K was just heading out. I heard from him about what were seen in the morning. I stayed another two hours at the Hawk Watch.
While I was there we mostly saw Turkey Vultures coming in waves of tens and fifteens. We also saw many Red-tailed Hawks, a few Northern Harriers, Sharp-shinned Hawks, a couple of Ospreys, two Merlins, a few Kestrels, two of three Rough-legged Hawks and one Bald Eagle flying wrong way! I saw today the report and they had seen a Golden eagle, which means it must have come after I left around 4.00 PM. >From there I headed to Montezuma visitor center to see if I would see the >spectacle of blackbirds I had seen on last Friday. There were lots of >Red-winged Blackbirds on the territory, but no congregation at all. But I had a great chance to study Muskrats. A musk rat was building a new nest and also eating some of the grass close to the auto loop. So I pulled out and studied its behavior. It mostly preened and ate and then it decided to the middle of La Rue's Lagoon, and meet another Muskrat. As soon as this reached the other musk rat there was a great reaction form the other muskrat and they had some kind of fight or foreplay and the one which had gone from the my side returned to the nest and continued preening. Soon the second one from the middle of the lake arrived . First the new comer nuzzled and preened the muskrat. Then they had some face to face encounters, similar to kissing or closely related act. then he mounted on the female muskrat for a few minutes while he was preening himself and ten he left for feeding. The whole incidence was about 3.00 minutes according to my video timing. At that time there was a GREAT HORNED OWL calling form a distance. Then I came across many feeding muskrats along the drive. Two of them gave me an opportunity to take a close up video. One of the them fed on the dry grass and the other one had found a spot of freshly emerging grass so he had nutritious food to feed on. It was fun to watch them. I rolled down my car slowly right in front of them about less than 5 feet away. They were not at all disturbed when I started my engine again! On the way out of the loop I stopped just a little south of the North Spring Pool paring lot from where I heard two Woodcocks "peenting". This is the same location I have heard in the past couple of years too. I waited for sometime to see if they would dance. But they did not. Overall it was pleasant day! Cheers Meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 42.429007,-76.47111 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/ --
