With the rain about over this afternoon, Betsy and I took the opportunity to get some birding in this weekend. Our best sighting, a milestone bird for me, was a BLACK VULTURE along Somerset-Hartland Townline Road at Drum Road. When first seen in flight as we were driving, it was being harassed by a crow. I thought it would turn out to be a Red-tailed Hawk (it was not lit well and may have been partially obscured by treetops). At some point, since I was not seeing a pale body, I decided to pull over and put the bins on it. Suddenly, I nailed my life Niagara County bird #300! It shortly landed in a tree and I took some quick digiscoped images but a real Red-tailed Hawk came along and put it up, despite the vultures much larger size. What a wimp! We watched the bird off and on over the next 20 minutes or so, occasionally near two Turkey Vultures, frequently losing it behind trees. It seemed to want to set down in a spruce plantation, and I think it did for a short spell. Eventually we lost it for about five minutes and decided to leave. We made a pass through the area about an hour later but did not stop long and did not see it again. I have put a couple of images up on Betsys web site (address below). Click on Willies Photos, then Recent Photos.
We checked out the field at the southwest quadrant of Somerset-Hartland Townline Road and Johnson Creek Road, which is about ½ mile west of where we saw the vulture. It had a lot of geese and ducks and while we were there, several massive flocks of a few thousand more geese dropped in. I was able to pick out a WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE just before it landed but we were never able to find it on the ground among the throngs of Canadas. There were 1100 NORTHERN PINTAILS here, as well as a handful each of AMERICAN WIGEON, BLACK DUCK, MALLARD, and RING-NECKED DUCK. There were also at least nine and as many as 15 CACKLING GEESE I kept finding groups of three Cacklers and I was unsure if these were the same birds I had already seen. Good birding! Willie ---------------- Willie D'Anna Betsy Potter Wilson, NY dannapotterATroadrunner.com http://www.betsypottersart.com -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html 3) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
