After watching the Grebe yesterday, I too headed to Summerhill in the afternoon. On Salt road, mostly I saw flocks of chickadees with Tufted Titmouse, and several White and Red-breasted nuthatches were seen. Nothing else except for the large truck with the backhoe was backing up on Dresser road made so much of noise that it was hard to hear any birds. Via Hovel Chalet and Fillmore Glen birth place I drove back to Lick street.
A Kestrel was seen half way between Hoag and Fillmore road. As I came to the intersection of Lick and Hoag, I slowed down and scanned the trees. Nothing seemed to be around and then shortly from the tree that did not have anything, a bird took off calling loudly and right behind it a few more took off, of course they were White-winged Crossbills. Once I saw some, I saw more. Another group of some twenty plus joined. So they were there . In the flock I saw one I think young male, he had beautiful yellowish head with lots of red on the back. He was sat on the top of the spruce and sang. He was stunningly beautiful. I spent some fifteen to twenty minutes. Several minutes in between it seemed like there was no one. I guess all of them were busy feeding. On the way back to Ithaca, I saw another Kestrel, two Red-tailed hawks, one Northern Harrier and a few Eastern Bluebirds between Lick and Ed Hill Road. Today morning, I too made an early morning trip to Snow Owl at NYCC. First, I stopped at the South Field and looked at the benches, they were empty. Then I stopped at building with sign D from the parking lot, I saw a blue bleacher that looked like there was big white plastic bag stuck. I was still in the car and watching from inside. As I was watching the plastic bag rose slowly and I could a pair of eyes watching my car. I am sure it was aware of my presence. The bird was 500 feet away from me. After a couple of seconds again, ducked down such that it could not see me. The second set of bench was in line with birds eyes, blocking it from seeing me. I still sat in the car, then again it peaked at me for few seconds and hid behind again. So I felt the bird probably was disturbed by someone in the car so it was wary of the cars. So I did not get out to scope it. I went to parking lot on the other side of the building and sat near dumpster and watched it. It did the same thing, peak out of its hiding place and then hunker down. After sometime it lost interest in my car. The body was very dark and face disc was white, so think may be it was a first year female. >From there, I went further north and turned on east side of the lake, Lake >seemed pretty much empty, except for Canada Geese. Most of the left over >Tundra Swans were heading towards MNWR. I did not stop at the Aurora as I had >to be back home for some errands, so I missed the Eared Grebe, but I did see >Dave Nutter! Meena Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 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/ --
