I spent four hours hiking the Texas Hollow Finger Lakes Trail with a friend. I know this is outside of the Cayuga Basin, but I hope it's OK to post anyway. Here are the highlights:
Driving 227 to Perry City I know this is probably way too early for swallows, but I could have sworn I saw a Barn Swallow swoop down into a marshy ditch and then up again out to through the corn field. I saw pointy forked tail and flash of rusty brown chest and white belly. On the way back, in almost the same area, I saw one lone male Horned Lark in the corn field. On the way to TX Hollow, I saw a large raptor circle around and dive-bomb down. The behavior reminded me of the territorial behavior of a Golden Eagle, but it was too far away and backlit for me to verify. Throughout the hike, I heard high-pitched "sip-sip" sounds high in the scotch pine and hemlock tree tops, wherever evergreen clusters were found. I am pretty sure it was a Golden-crowned Kinglet, so that is a first for me! I saw a large black eye and black stripe on the crown, but no color showing. Lastly, I think I heard a Red-breasted Nuthatch, which would be another first if it was indeed one. It sounded similar to the White-breasted Nuthatch but different and almost matched the Lab of O recording. -- 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/ --