I suggest watch the videos in HD mode at 1080 resolution. Submissive behavior occurs at 0.54 minutes in the first video!
Cheers Meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 42.429007,-76.47111 http://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ ________________________________ From: bounce-117669890-3493...@list.cornell.edu <bounce-117669890-3493...@list.cornell.edu> on behalf of Meena Madhav Haribal <m...@cornell.edu> Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 11:32 PM To: CAYUGABIRDS-L Subject: [cayugabirds-l] MNWR yesterday Yesterday I was thinking of going on the morning group walk to MNWR, but I came back from Moth Week Party at Treman SP only around 1.00 Am and after that too spent another hour at my moth sheet, which was fun where we saw over hundred species of moths. So when I got up at 6.00 am, I decided to go back to sleep again. Here is the Picasa link to some of the moths and people https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/118047473426099383469/albums/6040743710476999841?sort=1 Finally, after three pm I decided to go MNWR. Again several time along the road, I felt like turning back as I was feeling sleepy, but continued! I do not regret the decision. I wanted to see Least Bittern so I decided to first stop at the main drive. I took a mile walk of Seneca way loop near the visitor center and I found lots of shorebirds at the Seneca spillway before LaRue's. So I spent sometime taking videos of the behaviors. among shore birds there were several Lesser Yellowlegs, a couple of greater Yellowlegs, two Solitary Sandpipers, two Spotted Sandpipers, five Pectoral Sandpipers, 7 or 8 Least Sandpipers and several Swamp and Song Sparrows. I spent more than an hour here. I watched two Yellowlegs, one was Lesser and the other I think was Greater Yellowlegs juvenile, at least by the behavior. They were feeding close by each other but their territory did not overlap. They kept going and round and round and feeding within their distance. Once one of them seemed to have gone into the territory of the other bird. Other bird approached it. Suddenly the first yellowlegs sat down as if waiting for an attack and in submissive manner. See in the attached video. Then they were chasing one of the new comers, three or four individuals that were feeding at the site chased the bird in concert till the bird departed to LaRue's lagoon. See in the second video link. Then along the drive I watched each musk rat island was occupied by a family of birds. Several ones were occupied by Common Moorhen families. It was interesting to watch with which parent chicks would go for a feeding expedition. Then there was a family of Pied-billed Grebes, which were successful in the getting fish. This made a young Ring-billed Gull try to steal from the babies. Smart babies dove as soon as they saw gull heading towards them. Once gull tried to go under water to snatch the a fish from the babies. Then as I was driving further ahead a LEAST BITTERN flew from the marsh where there was some water and go towards LaRue's. Then shortly I saw the second one. It was not very satisfying look but good enough. As I continued I found several more muskrat islands occupied by families of a Wood Duck with female in attendance, Coot's family of pretty large babies, a family of Mallards. It seemed that they were ready to sleep for the night. A Muskrat was busy cutting mouthful of grass and taking it to the nest and coming back again and again for some more. I don't know if it feeds its young with grass or the male was taking the grass for nursing female. It was working just a few feet from my car. I also saw Marie Read's tree where the swallows were congregating for the roost. Finally by the time I headed to Knox-Marsellus sun was already behind the clouds and light was getting bad. But I found Ken Rosenberg sorting out birds. He found several Stilt Sandpipers, two Bonaparte's gulls, the pelican which was hiding somewhere for sometime came into the open. We also saw six or seven (I forget) Sandhill Cranes silently come into the marsh. Plus there were lots of odonates including several darners and also saw three Giant Swallowtails, Monarchs (including a mating pair) and other butterflies too! Overall it was a fantastic day! And on Saturday night at Treman SP, there were two baby Great-horned Owls were continuously begging and on Friday night at the Watkins Glen state park a Barred Owl called a couple of times. And yesterday morning as I was going to the lab, as I turned on Pine Tree Road from Honness Lane a Raven flew overhead calling loudly. Links to yellowlegs videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nbFubwnukE http://youtu.be/sIHI4uKtqjk Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 42.429007,-76.47111 http://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basics<http://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME> Rules and Information<http://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES> Subscribe, Configuration and Leave<http://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> Archives: The Mail Archive<http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html> Surfbirds<http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds> BirdingOnThe.Net<http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html> Please submit your observations to eBird<http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>! -- -- 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/ --
