Yesterday in the late afternoon I saw a small quiet flock of 8 Blue Jays moving eastward into the treetops of the northeast part of Allan H Treman State Marine Park, a similar path to the migrating Black-capped Chickadees I reported recently going around the southeast end of Cayuga Lake. This morning around 9:25am I saw a quiet flock of 32 Blue Jays flying north over the south end of Cass Park, also clearly migrating. They were over a field approaching a woodlot just above treetop level.
Blue Jays migrate in the daytime, and they fly quietly in rather spread-out flocks, each bird keeping a distance of a several feet to a few yards from all of its neighbors. They flap constantly in what looks to me like weak flight aimed at conserving energy. An interesting place to watch migrant Blue Jay flocks is around the Braddock Bay banding station, where they must turn generally east in order to get around Lake Ontario, but in that specific area must go southeast, leading so some apparently confused and circuitous travel. Migration is made when the wind is from a helpful direction, like today and the day I saw the Chickadee movement, generally from the south. In autumn I have watched Blue Jays fly south over the east end of Stewart Park, presumably having been gathered and guided by Cayuga Lake’s diagonal “east” shore, and over downtown Ithaca as well. To me, it’s a thrill to see the migration phenomenon played out. - - Dave Nutter -- 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/ --
