Late morning, an adult California Gull was present amongst a few hundred Herring and Ring-billed Gulls on the rocks below Devil's Hole State Park on the lower Niagara River. Sometime around noon it flew upstream presumably to forage amongst other gulls at the Robert Moses/Sir Adam Beck power plants. Also present were 3 adult "Kumlien's" Iceland Gulls and an adult "Nelson's" Gull (hybrid Herring x Glaucous Gull).
Later in the afternoon, Bill Watson and I spent some time following a large roving flock of a few thousand Snow Geese around Route 18 and Lower Lake Rd. in the towns of Somerset, Yates, and Carlton near the Niagara-Orleans County line. After nearly an hour of flying in circles (the birds are clearly not familiar with the area), they finally joined an existing mass of Snow Geese already sitting out on Lake Ontario near Shadigee (terminus of Rt. 63). The total flock count came to 5,700 Snows (21 Blue) and 1 Cackling Goose. Several scans of the flock did not turn up any Ross's Geese, but not surprising since the flock appeared close to a mile out. As others reported, about a half dozen Red-throated Loons and a few dozen Horned Grebes were on the lake here as well. Around 4:00 the juv. male Snowy Owl was sitting on the barn at the cow farm along Marshall Rd. in the town of Yates. Photos: www.flickr.com/photos/jmpawli10 Jim Pawlicki Amherst, NY -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
