Excellent success today in this winter enriched region for target birds, a trip for me and Mary Eyster intended to see Rough legged Hawks and Short eared Owls.
At our first stop, Skinners Lane north of Pine Island hamlet, a Dark morphed ROUGH LEGGED HAWK. Second stop Indiana Road, we saw several light phased ROUGHLEGGED HAWKS and a surprising diurnal high flying SHORTEARED OWL, that at one point was chasing a Crow. A few Rough legged were on the sod fields, Inc a dark morph. Walkill NWR AT OIL CITY ROAD ACCESS proved to be the big star, as an estimated 11 - 12 SHORTEARED OWLS emerged 515 pm, with 7 flying over the parking lot and making a good number of passes overhead. We were also earlier treated to at least 5 NORTHERN HARRIERs, two "GRAY GHOSTS", into the early evening and at least 7 ROUGHLEGGED HAWKS, one dark morph and an intermediate plumage bird. The road trail north of this oil city lot was best for the Rough legged and as well over 50 AMERICAN TREE SPARROWS. REDTAILED HAWKs dominated the region at Oil City road lot area, including one very cooperative bird perched on the information kiosk then to the power lines. the trail north also had view of a juvenile RED SHOULDERED HAWK, which we saw catch a prey and ripped it apart. This latter spot at Oil City was noisy though with large waves of Canada Geese honking incessantly. Glad I don't have to hear it though. Peter Dorosh Bklyn Bird Club -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
