I caught the atlas addiction bug on June 18, and have been atlasing most
mornings since. I keep waiting for the breeding activity to taper down so I can
ease up on the atlasing, and today looked like it might be the day. I arrived
at Highland Forest east of Tully with heavy overcast and rain falling 15
minutes after I arrived. Why did I waste my time driving all this way, I asked
myself. But after the rain passed, I managed to confirm 14 (probably) species -
possibly my best day yet - in this wonderful place in a surprisingly
low-coverage atlas block. The confirmations include not-easily-found species,
like Blackburnian feeding Cowbird, Golden-Crowned Kinglets feeding young, an
unexpected male Magnolia Warbler with accompanying fledgling, a silent mottled
thrush that my lousy photos showed a reddish tail feather suggesting Hermit
Thrush, and maybe a Nashville Warbler - a fledgling which I thought was a
Common Yellowthroat initially but my photo shows some reddish feathers on the
head -- I will have to post that later for discussion to confirm or refute. I
got these along with more usually confirmed species like Common Yellowthroat,
Dark-eyes Junco, Blue Jay, Cedar Waxwings, and Red-eyed Vireo - of which I've
been seeing many feeding young REVIs lately, in contrast to earlier in the
season when all the parent REVIs were feeding cowbirds! And I finished the
morning by the parking lot - which is outside the priority block - with a
redstart feeding young and a fledgling purple finch making an interesting call
hitherto unfamiliar to me. Mon-confirmation highlights include Pine Warbler
(red dot), Brown Creeper, and Broad-winged Hawk.
So it's not too late to get out to do some atlasing. Start by looking at the
block effort map at https://ebird.org/atlasny/effortmap . Doing a low-coverage
block can be more satisfying but atlasing any priority block or any block at
all is still useful to the project. You can also find links to useful resources
at https://cayugabirdclub.org/resources/breeding-bird-atlas . I'd been meaning
to write a primer for the BBA, but have been so busy atlasing I haven't gotten
around to it :-).
As you can imagine, most of the priority blocks around Ithaca have good
coverage or are marked complete. I've been using this as an excuse to explore
places further afield, and have discovered some wonderful birding sites within
an hour's drive: west beyond Watkins Glen are some state forests (Sugar Hill,
Goundry, West Hill), and to the SW Hornby Park and Edwin WMA are gems I didn't
know existed. To the southeast around Newark Valley are Alexander Pond,
Ketchumville SF and Oakley Corners SF. Towards Syracuse I found a "fledgling
alley" at Onondaga Dam, a path between two hedgerows where a variety of birds
including fledglings congregated; and today my latest discovery of Highland
Forest, which I'm surprised I'd never visited before. The places I've listed
are parks that let you bird off-road, but there are opportunities to atlas in
other blocks: look for quieter roads, cemeteries are often productive, and many
rural schools are surrounded by some habitat.
So this weekend I encourage everyone to give atlasing a try. The key is to
listen for high-pitched calls that "sound insistent" - which unfortunately may
be out of the range of hearing for many people. Fledglings do lots of silly
things and it's quite fun to watch!
Suan
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