Started the morning with some vine cutting led by Karalyn Lamb of Croton Point Vine Cutters and The Swarm, whose work albeit swimming upstream, helps put a dent in invasive species at the Point and elsewhere in the lower Hudson valley. Freed up some Sassafras saplings and some black cherry trees. My brief stint at manual labor paid off as I ran into a dear friend I hadn't seen in some time and we got in an hour's birding. There were a pair of American widgeon and many green winged teal in the scattered puddles. Also had 2 fox sparrow and 2 great horned owls. We missed the first reported osprey of the season. I was back at CPP in the evening for Saw Mill River Audubon's annual woodcock walk. The group first got looks at the lingering waterfowl and a single well camouflaged/wide-open (yes oxymoronic), Wilson's snipe that leader Charlie Roberto was able to get in the scope for the 20 or so participants. Then along the landfill's easternmost path we had at least 6 woodcock. They seemed to come out of the marsh right where the tree line ends. One was in clear view less than 20 feet from the group when the light was still decent. Several others were heard "peenting" and seen airborne although the flight seemed somewhat truncated, after all it was freezing. The night sky, however, was beautiful and for a perfect ending, there was "Venus rising first and shining best from the Northwest corner of a brand new crescent moon."*
* R. Hunter/J. Garcia L. Trachtenberg Ossining, 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/ --
