I had an errand to run up north today and so stopped at a couple of spots in the Montezuma Complex to check on shorebirds.
The visitor's center pool (?) has been disced, and some of the troughs have begun to fill with the recent rains. I understand, however, that watering it has been delayed due to a plumbing problem. In any case, the only inhabitants I could see were a dozen Canada Geese. Knox-Marcellus has been drawn down, exposing considerably more mud - and the number of shorebirds has increased several-fold over the past couple of weeks. I did not spend time counting or closely examining each bird. The bird that did stand out was a molting adult AMERICAN GOLDEN PLOVER. I was told that the DEC has begun to draw down the south pond at the MAC, and I walked out to check. Shorebird habitat was about the best I've seen there, and there was a good variety of birds to observe. They were a lot closer than the birds at K-M as seen from East Road. Of particular interest were the first (for me this year) juvenile dowitchers. I counted 21 SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS and 1 LONG-BILLED, though there may have been more that were obscured by the cattails in front of me. It appeared that all of the dowitchers were juveniles. They all had fresh plumage with no evidence of body molt. The Short-billeds showed the classic barring on their tertials, and the lone Long-billed showed the tiger striping there. Also of note was a single BAIRD'S SANDPIPER, a handful of WHITE-RUMPEDS, 4 SEMI-PALMATED PLOVERS, 80 Semipalmated and 13 Least Sandpipers. Dave Nutter will be leading a dike walk at K-M this Sunday. There should be a lot to see! Bob McGuire -- 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/ --
