Went up to Montezuma with birding friend Dan Watkins. Visitor's center was quiet except there was one injured SNOW GOOSE blue form. It is quite dry there now so no shorebirds of note. Did not hear the CERULEAN WARBLER at visitor's center today.
At Larue's, we had 2 different WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPERS among many LEAST and a few SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPERS. also several SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS, LESSER YELLOWLEGS, and KILLDEER. There was also one lone BLUE-WINGED TEAL. The main pool has a lot of mudflat and a lot of shorebirds. Most of the shorebirds were DUNLIN in their bright breeding plumage. Second most common were SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS. There were also a good amount of LEAST and several SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPERS. We got a great look at BAIRD'S SANDPIPER which was in close proximity to both least and semipalmated sandpipers. At one point I had all three in scope! It was really cool. The baird's was more beige colored, much larger, black legs (had good lighting, sun was at back), straight bill. I also picked out one WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER farther back with the distinct long tapered look, primary projection past tail and overall more grayish coloration. Bill was also slightly drooped at the end. We also had one lone BLACK-BELLIED PLOVER. There could have been more. No phalaropes. The main pool had one GREAT EGRET as well. Benning marsh did not have anything unusual except there was a PROTHONOTARY WARBLER singing and singing from the woods directly behind the marsh. Then a thunderstorm came crashing in and our birding was over. There were reports of a COMMON LOON still at Tschache pool and many REDHEADS too up there and I believe at May's too. We did not stop at either place due to the storms. Dave Nicosia -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
