Hi All, How good has it been lately? We arrived on the runway at Epcal just before 11 am this morning in hopes of, at least, a wire-fence-obscured peek at this newest arrival of grassland species. Michael McBride and his father had already had pleasing looks at the sparrow and had relayed to us the new location of the Lark Sparrow. Ken Feustal had found it out by the Route 25 entrance. For the moment the Leconte's was not showing but just as the McBride's were rolling down the runway we spotted the bird at the base of the juniper to the left of the enclosure. It soon lifted off the snow to a higher perch on the fir. A nice full view at last, that boldly striped head pattern, orange washed face. Then it disappeared for some 15 minutes until the next visitors appeared. Our number grew to 7 and all soon had the bird in scopes in low perch at 50 yards. A few minutes passed and Sandra Reynolds yelled out, "Its right here, just in front of us!" So it was. Now ,at about 5 yds. Then, this smallest of sparrows, worked its way down the edge of that runway , stopping briefly in each snowy clump of grass and then it did something none of us expected. It flew up and back towards the group landing on the runway within 2 ft. of an astonished Dick Belanger. His first Leconte"s, literally at his feet. Then the bird returned to its favorite juniper by the fenced enclosure leaving us staring into that icy wind. Good January Birding, Carl Starace
-- 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 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
