This afternoon, I drove around some open-country areas near Ithaca and Dryden, hoping to pick up some field birds. I was rewarded right away by a NORTHERN SHRIKE behind the Ithaca Airport -- the bird (a crisp and frosty adult) was on top of a thin tree on Snyder Rd. directly across from the wrecked cars inside the airport fence. It flew off to the north. A nice light-morph ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK was hunting over the airport fields.
I then headed over to Purvis Rd. and Cornell Lane south of Dryden. On Cornell Lane, a large manure spread was visible and a flock of 200± HORNED LARKS was feeding far out from the road. In the horizontal snow squall I could not pick out any longspurs (should have headed up to Triangle Diner instead :( ). Another light-morph ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK was hunting over these fields. On my way back, I drove down Lake Rd. and a dark-morph ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK flew over the road. I then checked fields around George Rd. and Scoffield Rd. for Short-eared Owls between 5 and 5:30, without success. Earlier in the day, I scanned the gulls on the ice at Stewart Park, and as with every other visit this winter, failed to find anything other than the usual 3 species. KEN Ken Rosenberg Conservation Science Program Cornell Lab of Ornithology 607-254-2412 607-342-4594 (cell) k...@cornell.edu -- 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/ --
