[cayugabirds-l] Clay-colored Sparrow, Cornell Arboretum area

[Brendan Fogarty]

Happy Friday everyone,
This morning there was an adult Clay-colored Sparrow in the "Crops of the 
World" garden. This is a small, fenced garden in the NE corner of the field N 
of Triticum Drive, which is just east of the Vet School. It is also very close 
to the arboretum - in fact the best parking is like there. Enter the arboretum 
by car, and take the first right at the top of the hill. In a few yards you 
pass very close to the garden on your right, then about a tenth of a mile down 
there is a parking area.
Coordinates: 42.451222, -76.459958
Checklist: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S24885234

Best,Brendan Fogarty
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[cayugabirds-l] Walk reports from the past few weekends at Sapsucker Woods, Ithaca

[Linda Orkin]

Just to tempt you to come out for a bird walk  this weekend.  7:30 Saturday
and Sunday.  We go all year long, holidays, weather, nothing stops us.  The
Cayuga Bird Club is happy to oblige, thank you!!

 And if you want to access these reports yourself go to this link
http://www.cayugabirdclub.org/sapsucker-woods-beginner-walks

8/15 Marc Devokaitis 24 visitors!!
Visitors from many lands including Japan, Israel, Toronto, Florida, New
Jersey and Canandaigua. A 3 YO and a 4 YO and a pair of twins in a stroller
were among the participants.

Birds were plentiful, feeding heavily and restlessly, especially along the
Wilson Trail near the Owen's Platform. Frustrating, fleeting glimpses of
many birds early on were made-up-for by rewarding, extended views of later,
including a AHY male Rose-breasted Grosbeak in basic plumage, a brightly
colored male Baltimore Oriole, a very obliging Great Crested Flycatcher,
and a busy Pileated Woodpecker. Usual suspects seen well included 3 Green
Herons, 2 Great Blue Herons, 1 f. Belted Kingfisher, and many juvenile
American Robins. Only one presumed warbler was glimpsed, only by the
leader, who didn't get enough info to hazard a guess.

One interesting behavior noted was an American Goldfinch ostensibly feeding
on something on the surface of the leaves of the black alders. A fungal or
insect gall? It did not appear the bird was going after the catkins...I
looked up the behavior in the Birds of North American to see if anything
like that had been noted. Under Lawrence's Goldfinch > Food Habits > Food
Items I found: "Jumping galls (Neuroterus saltatorius) of valley oak
(Quercus lobata) eaten in Aug from ground (mostly) and from leaves in
Central Valley of California "

8/16 Lee Ann Van Leer We had a enthusiastic crowd of 17 people of all ages
show up at Sapsucker Woods ready for birds! They came from Maine, Missouri,
Maryland, &, India, & Minnesota. There was also a photographer from the
County taking photos to be potentially used for local tourism and possibly
at the State level as well. Things started out well as one of the College
Students had their Lifer BLUE JAY. It turned out to be quite an exciting
morning. While we were on Wilson Trail North I alerted the group to some
predatory action on the large snag (former home of the Heron nest). A group
of BLUE JAYS had been mobbing 2 Cooper's Hawks but the COOPER'S HAWKS
decided to fight back. For 5-10 minutes we watched as again and again the
Cooper's Hawks retaliated. A Cooper's Hawk would fly off it's perch and
chase a Blue Jay zig zagging up and down the trunk and in and out of the
branches. It was never both hawks at once chasing but one at a time. We all
caught our breath as one of the hawks came extremely close to nailing one
of the Jays against the trunk of the tree. One may have thought the Blue
Jays would retreat after such close calls but the Jays and Hawks stayed in
the big snag or a neighboring tree for several more minutes. We also had
great looks at 3 Green Herons fishing from logs and lily pads and witnessed
a fish getting snagged. The children wanted to know how long it took for
the Great Blue Heron to catch something since it stood motionless for so
very long. A Belted Kingfisher kept rattling by around the pond every now
and then. 3 Wood Ducks were hanging out on or near a log among the lily
pads and there is a young family that has been making the rounds on the
pond and Fuller Wetlands ever since they hatched and have grown up fast.
The group seem quite impressed with the precision of the closely spaced
sapwells made by YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER on some trees I showed them. At
the end of our walk, the birders delighted in the 2 RUBY-THROATED
HUMMINGBIRDS sitting on the feeding garden fence and buzzing around the
flowers. Hope to some of you on a future walk!
I already shared Diane Morton's  walk

8/29 Becky Hansen 12 people It was a beautiful morning for a walk around
the pond. Most of the activity was on the water with lots of looks at Wood
Ducks, Green Herons , aGreat Blue Heron, Eastern Phoebes, and a Kingfisher.
The woods themselves were fairly quiet though we were able to enjoy
watching a young robin being fed by its parent.

-- 
Veganism is simply the acknowledgment that a replaceable and fleeting
pleasure isn't more valuable than someone's life and liberty.
~ Unknown

If you permit
this evil, what is the good
of the good of your life?

-Stanley Kunitz...

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[cayugabirds-l] OT: Bird food related talk. GoBotany: Sep 9 at 2.30 Pm in BTI auditorium

[Meena Madhav Haribal]

Hi all,
How many times you have wished you knew what the birds are eating or where the 
bird is sitting and wring your hands for not knowing the name of the plants. 
Now there is an interactive app available similar to your bird apps to nail the 
plant. Recently, I was in Montana and was watching White-tailed Ptarmigan with 
zest tear the seeds out of several species of plants, at least one was an 
Epilobium species but would love to identify all the plants it was feeding 
from.  This app is special for New England, which shares lots of plants with 
New York state.
Cheers
Meena





GoBotany: An app for identifying the more than 4000+
plants with simple keys
By Dr. Elizabeth Farnsworth

[cid:image010.jpg@01D0E700.9D12DDE0]

Sept 9 2015, 2.30 to 3.30 pm. Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) Auditorium, Tower 
Road Ithaca NY

Do you wonder how I am going to identify the plant I have seen from about 5000 
species found in our area?
Then this workshop/talk is for you.
Imagine being able to easily identify plants and learn all about them using an 
innovative set of keys and search tool on your smart phone, tablet, or desktop 
computer.  That is the vision of Go Botany: an award-winning, free, 
user-friendly, interactive web tool created by New England Wild Flower Society 
with funding from the National Science Foundation. Go Botany is the definitive 
on-line Flora of New England, covering more than 3,500 taxa, much of which we 
share with New York.  In this hands-on workshop, you'll learn how to use Go 
Botany's many features, including multiple-access keys, a clickable dichotomous 
key, teaching resources, and PlantShare -- a virtual community for plant 
enthusiasts.
Do you have a plant you need to identify? Bring you picture for this workshop 
to get it identified!
https://gobotany.newenglandwild.org/

Map showing BTI Auditorium and parking for people coming from outside the 
Cornell can pay at the meter per hour at Peterson or Vet School parking lots.

 [Vet school metered parking lot] [cid:image012.png@01D0E705.84B21360] 
[cid:image014.png@01D0E705.84B21360] [Peterson metered parking lot] [BTI] 
[cid:image020.jpg@01D0E700.9D12DDE0]

Elizabeth Farnsworth, Ph.D. is Senior Research Ecologist with the New England 
Wild Flower Society, and a biologist, educator, and scientific illustrator. She 
is currently directing a project to develop the Society's first online courses 
for teaching botany. She co-directed a National Science Foundation-funded 
project to develop the award-winning Go Botany web application: a comprehensive 
guide to all of the plants of New England. She is co-author of the Connecticut 
River Boating Guide: Source to Sea and the Peterson Field Guide to Ferns of 
Northeastern North America. She has illustrated the Flora Novae Angliae (Yale 
University Press), A Field Guide to the Ants of New England (Yale University 
Press), The Nature of New Hampshire, and five other books on ferns, coastal 
ecology, climate change, statistics, and spiders. She is also Senior Editor of 
the botanical journal, Rhodora. She has served on the science faculties of 
Smith College, Hampshire College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 
the University of Rhode Island, and the Conway School of Landscape Design. She 
is a Research Associate and former Bullard Fellow of the Harvard Forest. She 
has conducted biological research in many ecosystems around the world, with a 
focus on plant physiological and evolutionary responses to climate change and 
the conservation biology of rare plants. She holds a PhD from Harvard 
University in Biology, MSc from University of Vermont, and BA from Brown 
University.

Hope to see some of you!

Dr. Meena Haribal
409, Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI)
Ithaca NY 14853 USA
Email: m...@cornell.edu


http://haribal.org/
http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/
Ithaca area moths: http://tinyurl.com/kn6q2p4
Dragonfly book sample pages: http://www.haribal.org/140817samplebook.pdf



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[cayugabirds-l] Peregrine still hanging around/bradfield/cornell

[Liisa S. Mobley]

Several people reported a peregrine earlier this week, and it seems to still be 
hanging around at Bradfield Hall at Cornell.  On Wednesday, I thought I saw it 
swooping over Tower Rd, but I was riding in a car, and did not have my glasses 
or my binoculars, so I wasn't quite certain.  Yesterday, I got off the bus by 
Bradfield, and observed a peregrine-like bird on one of the lower ledges (SW 
corner).  No binoculars, but I did have glasses on!  Today I remembered my 
binoculars, and when I got off the bus about 7:45 am, I saw a peregrine-like 
bird in the same corner, but a higher ledge.  It was turned away from me, but 
eventually it turned its face toward me, so I could see its characteristic 
facial features.

  I was hoping to get a closer look in brighter light at about 10:30 am, but no 
sign of the bird on Bradfield or surrounding buildings.  
-Liisa

Liisa Mobley
Sent from my iPhone
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