Mt. Loretto 4 Nov Joe Giunta and I (Sy Schiff) continued our quest for unusual geese (after yesterday's Sunken Meadow trip) by journeying to Mt. Loretta on Staten I. We made a brief detour to look for the Hummingbird, stopping for 30 minutes without success.
We went to the small Mt. Loretta Preserve parking lot on Hylan Blvd. and walked left. There were two large flocks of Canada Geese on the lawns across the road. The second and farthest flock from us contained two small geese. One was clearly a CACKLING GOOSE. The second was re-confirmed, at home, from a distant photograph taken from the road. The ID of a small goose is not so obvious as has been noted elsewhere, As we returned to the car just at noon, all the geese erupted, flew over to our side of the road and into the preserve. There was a lot of activity at the school at that point and the commotion might have spooked the birds. Five minutes later and we would have missed them. Sy -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES Archives: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
