All, We had 22 people walk the dike between Knox-Marcellus / Puddler's Marshes Montezuma on Saturday September 9th. Some folks started on Towpath Road and met up with us on the dike as most walked down from East Road. We also had a nice group of young birders from the SUNY ESF bird club join us.
This was a day of great bird diversity as Jay McGowan recorded an amazing 109 species between Towpath Road and the dike. See: http://bit.ly/2eYqdg9 This is a testament to the great bird diversity we enjoy in the Cayuga Basin! Highlights from our walk included a flyover AMERICAN GOLDEN-PLOVER that we first identified by call. The bird circled around a few times and we got great looks at the bird which was a molting adult. We also had BAIRD'S SANDPIPER initially at the beginning of the walk. This bird was in very poor lighting at first and we struggled a bit on the ID. On the way back at the very end of the path on the edge of the water in the channel, we found the bird again in much better lighting and there were actually two of them! We also had a YELLOW-BELLIED FLYCATCHER closer to Towpath Rd from the dike. We also saw many KILLDEER, SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS, both species of YELLOWLEGS, LEAST and SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPERS. A few of us saw a dowitcher briefly and a few had a STILT SANDPIPER at the beginning. We also got great looks at an immature BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERON and 3 NORTHERN HARRIER soaring close and low. There were also 11 SANDHILL CRANES and many species of waterfowl. My list can be found here which does not include Towpath Road.... http://bit.ly/2vW1LTJ Thanks to all who came along and thanks to the fine folks at Montezuma for supporting these annual shorebird walks. Dave Nicosia -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm 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://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
