About 1pm Sunday from east side of Cayuga L. I saw many 100s (1000s?) SNOW GEESE near west shore, probably ones Sandy saw. At the same time well south of them I saw (scoped) two long skinny rowing boats moving north by west shore.
Later, after doing work away from windows, I looked towards where Snow Geese had been & they were gone. Right where the geese had been resting was one of the long skinny (dragon?) boats w many rowers, who no doubt scared away the geese. Also saw 2 motor boats on lake, heading north yesterday. Fishing season opened I guess. Risky being out in boats w water being ~33• . Sent from my iPhone Donna Scott On Mar 30, 2015, at 10:10 AM, Sandy Wold <[email protected]> wrote: > Yesterday, I took a friend up the west side of the lake and had the following > highlights. > > At Newman Golf Course > --in the Inlet: about 6 Pintails > --Redwing Blackbirds in the shrubs on the shore > --6 GW Teal in the middle of the Golf Course among cattail/puddle (5 male, > one femal) > --Great-horned owl sitting in her nest with a moving white fluffy round > object poking out > (I think she is the one who hunts the sewer rats near my house in Fall Creek. > Yes, Fall Creek has rats. Also, I found a wing and duck torso skeleton > nearby and wonder who at it. I will post the picture on Facebook CBC.) > > Driving down the hill from Upper Taughannok, we saw a tremendous huge raft of > bobbing balls of white, which I guessed was Snow Geese, perhaps hundreds of > thousands of them spanning from somewhere between the salt mine to Sheldrake > Point. So we estimated the "line" formation which was changing from blob to > line formation extending about 2/3 of the distance from the west side to the > east side of the lake. We tried to get closer at Barton Camp but still could > not identify them. By the time we got to Sheldrake, the mass was gone. > However, there was a smaller flotilla of about several thousand down one of > the beach roads (right after a red barn when heading north). We got to > within 25 yards and could see about 10 Blue Geese (my first!). After about > fifteen minutes and a few outbursts of gaggling, they all stated to "drift" > out to the middle of the lake, then they started to all face north EVERY ONE > OF THEM, then they formed a line and pushed into one another while all > reorienting themselves east, EVERY ONE of them facing east. this orienting > took about four minutes and all of this was video taped. Then it was as if > someone shot the start gun, and one by one in a flash, they all took flight > in the most orderly manner. I was in awe and yelling out what I was > watching. I could not believe it. Has anyone ever seen this behavior > before? Perhaps this is common, but I had no idea that there was this kind > of communication going on in the water. I know they take turns in the air > with taking the lead, but this was remarkable. > > THEN, I noticed about 100 yards south, where an equally large flotilla of > CANADIAN GEESE > > > -- > Cayugabirds-L List Info: > Welcome and Basics > Rules and Information > Subscribe, Configuration and Leave > Archives: > The Mail Archive > Surfbirds > BirdingOnThe.Net > Please submit your observations to 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/[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/ --
