RE:[cayugabirds-l] MNWR yesterday
I suggest watch the videos in HD mode at 1080 resolution. Submissive behavior occurs at 0.54 minutes in the first video! Cheers Meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 42.429007,-76.47111 http://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ From: bounce-117669890-3493...@list.cornell.edu bounce-117669890-3493...@list.cornell.edu on behalf of Meena Madhav Haribal m...@cornell.edu Sent: Monday, July 28, 2014 11:32 PM To: CAYUGABIRDS-L Subject: [cayugabirds-l] MNWR yesterday Yesterday I was thinking of going on the morning group walk to MNWR, but I came back from Moth Week Party at Treman SP only around 1.00 Am and after that too spent another hour at my moth sheet, which was fun where we saw over hundred species of moths. So when I got up at 6.00 am, I decided to go back to sleep again. Here is the Picasa link to some of the moths and people https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/118047473426099383469/albums/6040743710476999841?sort=1 Finally, after three pm I decided to go MNWR. Again several time along the road, I felt like turning back as I was feeling sleepy, but continued! I do not regret the decision. I wanted to see Least Bittern so I decided to first stop at the main drive. I took a mile walk of Seneca way loop near the visitor center and I found lots of shorebirds at the Seneca spillway before LaRue's. So I spent sometime taking videos of the behaviors. among shore birds there were several Lesser Yellowlegs, a couple of greater Yellowlegs, two Solitary Sandpipers, two Spotted Sandpipers, five Pectoral Sandpipers, 7 or 8 Least Sandpipers and several Swamp and Song Sparrows. I spent more than an hour here. I watched two Yellowlegs, one was Lesser and the other I think was Greater Yellowlegs juvenile, at least by the behavior. They were feeding close by each other but their territory did not overlap. They kept going and round and round and feeding within their distance. Once one of them seemed to have gone into the territory of the other bird. Other bird approached it. Suddenly the first yellowlegs sat down as if waiting for an attack and in submissive manner. See in the attached video. Then they were chasing one of the new comers, three or four individuals that were feeding at the site chased the bird in concert till the bird departed to LaRue's lagoon. See in the second video link. Then along the drive I watched each musk rat island was occupied by a family of birds. Several ones were occupied by Common Moorhen families. It was interesting to watch with which parent chicks would go for a feeding expedition. Then there was a family of Pied-billed Grebes, which were successful in the getting fish. This made a young Ring-billed Gull try to steal from the babies. Smart babies dove as soon as they saw gull heading towards them. Once gull tried to go under water to snatch the a fish from the babies. Then as I was driving further ahead a LEAST BITTERN flew from the marsh where there was some water and go towards LaRue's. Then shortly I saw the second one. It was not very satisfying look but good enough. As I continued I found several more muskrat islands occupied by families of a Wood Duck with female in attendance, Coot's family of pretty large babies, a family of Mallards. It seemed that they were ready to sleep for the night. A Muskrat was busy cutting mouthful of grass and taking it to the nest and coming back again and again for some more. I don't know if it feeds its young with grass or the male was taking the grass for nursing female. It was working just a few feet from my car. I also saw Marie Read's tree where the swallows were congregating for the roost. Finally by the time I headed to Knox-Marsellus sun was already behind the clouds and light was getting bad. But I found Ken Rosenberg sorting out birds. He found several Stilt Sandpipers, two Bonaparte's gulls, the pelican which was hiding somewhere for sometime came into the open. We also saw six or seven (I forget) Sandhill Cranes silently come into the marsh. Plus there were lots of odonates including several darners and also saw three Giant Swallowtails, Monarchs (including a mating pair) and other butterflies too! Overall it was a fantastic day! And on Saturday night at Treman SP, there were two baby Great-horned Owls were continuously begging and on Friday night at the Watkins Glen state park a Barred Owl called a couple of times. And yesterday morning as I was going to the lab, as I turned on Pine Tree Road from Honness Lane a Raven flew overhead calling loudly. Links to yellowlegs videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nbFubwnukE http://youtu.be/sIHI4uKtqjk Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 42.429007,-76.47111 http://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basicshttp://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME Rules and
RE:[cayugabirds-l] MNWR yesterday evening - Marbled Godwit (6.30PM) and Wilson's Phalarope
I forgot to add a LEAST BITTERN was seen from Tow-path Road fly into a cattail clump! Meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 http://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ From: bounce-105747854-3493...@list.cornell.edu [bounce-105747854-3493...@list.cornell.edu] on behalf of Meena Madhav Haribal [m...@cornell.edu] Sent: Sunday, August 04, 2013 9:05 AM To: CAYUGABIRDS-L Subject: [cayugabirds-l] MNWR yesterday evening - Marbled Godwit (6.30PM) and Wilson's Phalarope Hi all, Yesterday, I made a trip specifically for shorebirds to MNWR. I was interested in seeing the Marbled Godwit, which would make my basin list to 308th species! In the morning I spent time at Salt point with Candace and Robin for the future trail preparation as we had already planned. Then I was planning to head to Montezuma immediately, but I found I had not got my water bottles. Plus, I thought light would be too much from wrong direction so decided to head home and wait till later in the afternoon. I headed for MNWR around 1.30 PM. I arrived at Knox-Marcellus around 2.30 PM. I found Jason Huck already watching the shorebirds. So he pointed me the direction of the Marbled Godwit. I looked and found one easily, it was feeding alone in an area without most of the other shorebirds, closer to Knox -Marcellus side. I watched it for sometime, it fed continuously while I watched it. It probed its beak sometimes partly into the mud and sometimes it poked its beak all the way in and ate lot of things. After watching it for a while, I started looking for other shorebirds, but light seemed too harsh. Jason told me he found more shorebirds closer to Tow-path road. So I decided to head there. The road is pot-holed or rather large pan-holed and lots of muddy patches filled with water. I arrived at the point where there was a good view of the marsh. But closer spot had very few birds, but among the few birds I found one BAIRDS SANDPIPER, which I determined that it was probably an adult in molting almost reached the winter plumage. I saw twice it scare the Semi-palmated Sandpiper, which froze when the Baird's came close to it. And Baird's had a posture, which I would consider as a threat posture. BTW, I found Obrien, Crossely and Karlson book does not have most of the shorebirds showing flight pictures, which I thought was rather annoying as they are one of the important characters for identifying shorebirds! Then I scanned the birds further ashore, where I found a flock of Short-billed Dowitchers (16) feeding vigorously. As I was scanning the other shorebirds, I soon found a bird which I knew was a different from form the other shorebirds, soon determined that to be a WILSON'S PHLALROPE. I watched its feeding behavior, which was very distinct. It fed in the manner it would feed while swimming, but only running instead of swimming. So later I decided I want to find it with my binoculars. I was able to pick it up by its behavior every time I scanned. Three birds looked like good candidates for White-rumped Sandpipers, but they never flew while I watched them. From here I could see the American Pelican either sleeping or preening, which would not be visible from the East Road if it was sleeping. Again, I went back to East Road to look for shorebirds. I did not find anything special till Ken Rosenberg and Paul arrived. Ken and Paul picked up lots of Stilt Sandpipers feeding far away from the shore. The behavior to look for as Ken described was oil drill machines. They feed like Dowitchers but every time after the feeding bout would rise up. I thought that was a very appropriate description. We rediscovered the Marbled Godwit, which had relocated itself among the other shorebirds halfway between Tow-path road and Knox-Marcellus, but was easy to locate. So it moves a fair bit. So if people are looking for it search the whole area. It was there till I left around 6.30 PM. It was a great day! Cheers Meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 http://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: Welcome and Basicshttp://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME Rules and Informationhttp://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES Subscribe, Configuration and Leavehttp://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm Archives: The Mail Archivehttp://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html Surfbirdshttp://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds BirdingOnThe.Nethttp://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBirdhttp://ebird.org/content/ebird/! -- -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1)
