Dave Nicosia, Thank you so much for leading this past Sundays walk. For someone
who mostly birds alone , it was a great learning experience and all the extra
sets of eyes were quite helpful as well.Dave Nutter thanks so much for the
insight into Stilt Sandpiper feeding behavior it sure made locating them much
easier!! The sedge wren imitator , yellow warbler I think you said ( or was it
yellowthroat? Please correct me)was also very interesting. What a great
experience birding with such a friendly, welcoming and extremely knowledgeable
group.Thanks again for a great time. I highly recommend these walks for all
levels of birders! Tom FernandesSent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy
smartphone
Original message From: Dave Nutter Date:
9/9/19 3:38 PM (GMT-05:00) To: David Nicosia Cc:
Cayuga birds , "Van Beusichem, Andrea"
, "Ziemba, Linda" Subject:
Re: [cayugabirds-l] Montezuma Knox-Marsellus Marsh Dike Walk Sun Sept 8th, 2019
Thanks, Dave Nicosia, for doing a great job leading the walks, keeping eBird
lists, and writing summaries! I have a few things to add. First, it made a big
difference that the dike had been widely mowed for the Muckrace, so it was easy
to view the impoundment. Not only could we watch from more places, but several
people could stand next to each other without anyone’s view being blocked, and
short people could just plain see, all of which had been difficult when the
vegetation was tall everywhere along the dike. Thank-you, Refuge staff.Second,
it was Ken & Adriaan who found the small passerine flock in the SE corner of
the woods, including Magnolia Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, a Red-eyed Vireo
which surprisingly made a couple of wide sweeping sallies out from the woods,
Swamp Sparrow, Song Sparrow (all of which I saw), and Least Flycatcher (which I
missed).Dave Nicosia listed a flyover Wilson’s Snipe, but from farther along
the dike I managed to follow such a bird in my scope until it alit on the open
mud, barely visible to me as I looked over an island of cattails. With several
other folks, I walked on the dike past the cattails and proudly aimed my scope
at the Snipe who was walking toward a sleeping Greater Yellowlegs and a
preening Pectoral Sandpiper on either side of an inconsequential bit of weed
stubble. The first person looking through my scope had a great view, but the
second person couldn’t find the Snipe. I looked again, and neither could I.
Then someone looking through another scope saw the Snipe’s head move in the
weed stubble, and people again took turns watching. When I got my scope back, I
watched the Snipe for awhile, too. Eventually I realized that I really could
see most of the Snipe, but it matched the weed stubble in height, color, and
pattern. This was a life bird for one of the people with me. Early in the walk
I had fallen behind Dave Nicosia, and I saw 3 American Golden-Plovers flying
back and forth over the marsh. They started low, but gradually gained altitude
and eventually appeared to fly off toward the Wildlife Drive. At least 2 of
them were adults in transition to winter plumage but still with considerable
blotches of black below. Much later I found a single such bird walking on the
mud, so I told people about it, and when I looked again, there were 3 plovers.
Maybe they were the same birds that I saw depart a couple hours earlier, having
determined that Knox-Marsellus had the best shorebird habitat around. Again
people were interested in the subtleties of Stilt Sandpiper ID, so we worked on
that while watching their distinctive vertical ramming feeding behavior among
the more randomly pecking Greater & Lesser Yellowlegs. And I talked about
Pectoral Sandpipers, whose color & pattern are similar to Least, but whose
shape differs, the larger species having a proportionately smaller head with an
actual neck showing at times (Least & Semipalmated Sandpipers look neck-less to
me). And I talked about how to use color and shape and proportions in shorebird
ID generally.On our way out onto the dikes we saw several Long-billed
Dowitchers, whose immaculate juvenile plumage had a cold grayish-tan hue
overall and whose tertials were plain gray with narrow pale edges. When I was
leaving, walking slow and falling behind everyone else, I discovered a juvenile
Short-billed Dowitcher which must have just arrived. It had a warm overall
orange glow in the sunlight from the edging on all the back & wing feathers,
including the tertials, which had additional orange bars. I wished
