I spent yesterday morning scouting for today’s local trip, looking for new arrivals and for particularly birdy locations. Unfortunately, I did not come up with much and was left wondering, this morning, what to do. The answer came via text message from Ann Mitchell. Just as we were leaving the Lab of O to walk around Sapsucker Woods, Ann writes of an AMERICAN BITTERN hanging out at the Swan Pen (actually, the “Louis Agassiz Fuertes Memorial Bird Sanctuary” - Thanks Geo), Stewart Park. We jumped in the cars and headed down.
We would have had a very difficult time locating the statuesque Bittern, hidden as it was in a small stand of cattails. We would have walked right past it had Susan not pointed us directly to it. We enjoyed great scope views, even better when the bird was flushed up onto an exposed tree truck by a local photographer. Our attention was then drawn to the few remaining ducks offshore: Ruddy Duck, both Scaup, Ring-necked Ducks, the lone remaining Canvasback, and a pair of Spotted Sandpipers. >From there we headed out to Monkey Run South and walked the eastern loop of >the Cayuga Trails Club trail. At the start the woods were filled with >…..quiet. But it picked up as we moved along. We were able to call in both >Nuthatches, Downy, Hairy Woodpeckers, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (in fact, a >group of three, nicely interacting and calling all the while), a very >cooperative Brown Creeper, a more cooperative Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and an >even more cooperative (or at least, very obliging) pair of PINE WARBLERS. Just >short of the parking lot we picked up a Hermit Thrush - no way on knowing if >he is a newly-arrived migrant or the guy that has wintered there this year. With a bit of time left, we drove down to the Mulholland Preserve on Six Mile Creek, hoping for the recently-reported Louisiana Waterthrushes. We listened. We tried to call them in. But to no avail. That was it for the day. All in all, I think we did all right! It was a great group, with lots of knowledge and a willingness to pass it around. And I heard that a couple of folks saw life birds today. Bob McGuire -- 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/ --
