Hi all, Just a few minutes ago there was lot of commotion in my yard. Every bird in the area seem to be at my home. Several Robins, Black-capped Chickadees, Nuthatches, Blue Jays and House Wrens, were going nuts and everyone seemed to be looking in the spruces. After 10 minutes I decided to go and investigate thinking there was an owl as I had heard short bar of Eastern Screech Owl call yesterday around 2.30 am or a cat.
On investigating I found a Cooper's Hawk taken a refuge in the trees and probably was planning to spend the night there. I had crashed into undergrowth that in turn had alerted the Cooper's and it moved to another branch and watched me for sometime. Then it decided to fly away to my neighbor's yard. I felt sorry for dashing around and chasing away a bird from its chosen roost :-( Chickadees continued being nuts for another five minutes and robins became silent soon afterwards. A little earlier, I had seen a fledgling of Red-eyed Vireo and fledglings of two House wrens accompanied by their parents. In the morning I had gone in search of Yellow-bellied sapsuckers to a private wood lots in Madison County, where we came upon several groups of migrants/residents. First group consisted of fledglings of Wood Thrush, Magnolia Warblers and Ovenbirds, including chickadees. Second group consisted of Red-eyed Vireo fledglings, Baltimore Oriole and more Magnolias. I also saw what to me looked like a Prothonotary Warbler, with yellow head and blue-grey plumage, but just had several glimpses and seemed chunkier than Blue-winged warbler. Third group consisted of more Magnolias, Redstarts and Canada Warblers along with the other residents, but as luck turns out I did not have any sightings of sapsuckers but lots of evidences of them being around. Cheers Meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 42.429007,-76.47111 http://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ -- 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/ --
