Hi all, Luke Seitz, Benjamin Van Doren, Hope Batcheller, Andy Johnson, and I participated in this year's Muckrace as Team Terradroma. We came away with 139 species for the day.
We started on East Road where we had the White Pelican, several American Golden-Plovers, Whimbrel, White-rumped, Baird's, and Buff-breasted Sandpiper among others (three female Common Mergansers were unexpected). Our night birding consisted of multiple stops for Eastern Screech, Barred, and Great Horned. Otherwise, the night was rather slow with only a few migrants: Swainson's Thrush, Ovenbird, and Canada Warbler. We hit Towpath at first light and had several mixed flocks with orioles, tanagers scattered among a few warblers: Black-throated Green, Blackpoll, Blackburnian, Magnolia, Black-and-white, and Wilson's. Least Bittern and Virginia Rail vocalized for us at Tschache Pool. There was a single adult Red-headed Woodpecker at May's Point when we stopped for a couple minutes. Our next big stop was at Howland Island, which was awesome. Warblers were everywhere. We had 16 species in total there (19 on the day), walking a few miles listening for mixed-species flocks. We were pleasantly surprised to find several Chipping Sparrows and Eastern Bluebirds. Additionally, there were a few Philadelphia Vireos mixed in along with Yellow-bellied Flycatcher and Olive-sided Flycatcher. At Van Dyne Spoor Road in the marsh there were also 2 Ring-necked Ducks. We ended the day with surprise Red-necked Phalaropes from the dike at KM Marsh. They could have been seen directly out from the East Road pullout. Watching from East Rd in the waning minutes of the 6 o'clock hour, a lone Common Nighthawk over Towpath Rd was a nice end to the day. All in all a really fun day to be out birding. It was extremely fun and friendly competition! Good Birding, Ben Barkley -- 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/ --
