At 2:30 today I was just finishing up an hour crow watch at the Cornell compost facility on Stevenson Road when I noticed that an incoming vulture was a BLACK VULTURE: short tail, flat and broad wings, and white patches in the primaries. It then landed in the big lone snag, with 8 Turkey Vultures. It was easily visible from Stevenson Road. Nothing else of note in the compost. The ponds have been drained enough that little shorebird habitat remains. 2 Killdeer were the shorebird total today.
Earlier around noon I went to Cornell campus to see if I could find the CLAY-COLORED SPARROW that everyone else saw in the spring. I found it in the trees on the south side of Goldwyn-Smith, between there and Stimson Hall. It sang softly a few times and I was able to get a good look. Neither it nor the Chipping Sparrow in the same area seemed to be feeding young. But, the Chipping Sparrow family just to the north was feeding a fledgling Brown-headed Cowbird. I saw 13 bird species on the Arts Quad, including a fly-over pair of calling MERLINS. Kevin Kevin J. McGowan, Ph.D. Instructor Home Study Course in Bird Biology Investigating Behavior: Courtship and Rivalry in Birds Cornell Lab of Ornithology 159 Sapsucker Woods Road Ithaca, NY 14850 k...@cornell.edu<mailto:k...@cornell.edu> 607-254-2452 Do you know about our other distance-learning opportunities? Visit http://www.birds.cornell.edu/courses and learn about our comprehensive Home Study Course in Bird Biology, our online course Investigating Behavior: Courtship and Rivalry in Birds<http://www.birds.cornell.edu/courses/courtship/>, our Be A Better Birder tutorials<http://www.birds.cornell.edu/courses/home/tutorial/>, and our series of webinars<http://www.birds.cornell.edu/courses/home/webinars/>. Purchase the webinars here<http://store.birds.cornell.edu/category_s/55.htm>. -- 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/ --
