Five intrepid birders joined me for an excellent day of birding. We met at Stewart Park in the icy parking lot and scoped out the gulls. There were no white-winged gulls, so we headed to East Shore Park where we saw a number of WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS, LONG-TAILED DUCKS, MERGANSERS, COOTS, and Dave found a RED-THROATED LOON. After that success, we headed to Ladoga where there were two NORTHERN PINTAILS which were added to our list. We decided to look for field birds so we headed to Bell Dairy where there were many SNOW BUNTINGS and HORNED LARKS. Dave found a beautifully plumaged LAPLAND LONGSPUR for us. Before heading up the lake, we stopped at the King Ferry Bakery for coffee, etc.
Long Point was the next stop where there were many RED-BREASTED MERGANSERS, AMERICAN BLACK DUCKS, MALLARDS, one COMMON LOON on the water, and six BLUEBIRDS and DARK-EYED JUNCOS flitting around in the trees. We stopped on the road heading to Aurora and saw a GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET among a number of other passerines in the trees. At the Aurora Boathouse, Wes and Bob counted 27 HORNED GREBES! Our last stop on the east side of the lake was Harris Park in Cayuga. We just set up our scopes to look through the Aythya flocks, when we received a Rare Bird Alert from Jay saying the GYRFALCON was back at Hoster Road. Well, I asked Leigh if she had ever seen one. She said '"No" so we all hopped back in the car and Bob took to the road. Dave said Gyrfalcons only sit for 30 minutes at a time. We arrived at Hoster Road in 20 minutes. We watched the bird for ten minutes and it flew. How Dave knew it would fly, is beyond me! We next went to Van Cleef Lake in Seneca Falls to look at gulls. We found four LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULLS, one juvenile ICELAND GULL, and one adult plumaged GLAUCOUS GULL. The last place we stopped was the Seneca Airport where we saw two SNOWY OWLS - one light one and one dark one. Beautiful birds. I am glad the weather didn't interfere with the trip. No accidents. Only the parking lots were icy. It sprinkled for a couple hours, but it was only a bother to the optics. People saw some new year birds AND Leigh had 2 Lifers - Lapland Longspur and Gyrfalcon. Thanks to everyone for coming. The trip was a SUCCESS! -- 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/ --
