As Ken pointed out, my lunch break yesterday atop the hill at Sapsucker Woods was definitely worth posting, so sorry for not doing so until now. The highlight of course was the remarkable (although expected given the wind conditions) number of geese moving overhead, most of them with a strong westerly component to their otherwise northerly trajectories. I counted (roughly) 57,000 CANADA GEESE in the two and a half hours I was out there, among them *11* CACKLING GEESE (mostly in pairs, some singles and one group of three), as well as 143 SNOW GEESE, most mixed in with Canada Goose flocks. One group of 35 or so Snow Geese contained a single presumed ROSS'S GOOSE, a much smaller bird than the Snows and having trouble keeping up with the flock as they angled west towards the lake. As Ken mentioned, one of the other highlights for me was the group of 19 TUNDRA SWANS that went over with a large pulse of Canada Geese. Other birds included a group of 7 NORTHERN PINTAIL, a pair of AMERICAN WIGEON, 2 NORTHERN HARRIERS (but NO other raptors), 3 KILLDEER, 1 AMERICAN PIPIT, 1 HORNED LARK, 1000+ COMMON GRACKLES, 600+ RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS, and 5 PURPLE FINCHES. Here is the full eBird list: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S10026427
Right now, two male AMERICAN WIGEON are swimming around the back side of the pond here at the Lab of Ornithology with the Hooded Mergansers. Cheers, -Jay -- Jay McGowan Macaulay Library Cornell Lab of Ornithology jw...@cornell.edu -- 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/ --
