Thousands of Snows, wave afte wave, were heading towards the mucklands as we sat along 89 at Mays about 4:10 p.m. today. They might have gone to Knox-Marcellus but we went on to Armitage Rd. to look for eagles. One eagle was soaring over the trees where the nest is & a much smaller hawk was not too far from it but with sun in the eyes, forget ID.
>From there we went to 89/31 to look out over the muck where we encountered Ms. >Read who said that some yrs. ago we had given her directions to finding >Screechie .... this old brain had no memory of that!!! She was looking for the Armitage Rd. eagle nest. Hopefully our directions were profitable. Just wish she had followed us to see an a never-to-be forgotten sight. Not that we haven't seen it before BUT.... When we turned onto 31, in seconds we saw 1000s of Snow Geese coming in to land on the muck way out beyond the potato bldg.. A couple from Ithaca, not club members, was looking at the Snows already on the ground when the big flock came in. Then in came another huge flock of a thousand or so that seemed to "put on their brakes", let the air out of their balloons & float effortlessly to the ground. Amazing how they miss each other. We saw lots of Canadas & many hundreds of "gulls" on the muck on both sides of 31. The Ithaca couple had missed seeing Screechie so headed to Union Springs to try to see her/him. We had seen the cutie along with 1 Bufflehead just before heading north about 3:45 p.m.. When we got back to Factory St. pond at 5:08 p.m. we could still see Screechie in the box ... but then, we know what to look for. Forgot to mention that Becky & I saw 30 or 40 Brown-headed Cowbirds at her feeders on Thurs. afternoon. I saw not one bird at my feeders today until 10:45 a.m.!! Must be they are pigging out at someone else's feeders. Dave Nutter just mentioned crows in Ithaca. They're sure roosting in Auburn & have been since fall. Thurs., Becky & I saw several thousand in trees & coming in to land from every direction lining Rtes. 5 & 20 in Aub. & also along 326 across from BOCES near Half Acre. Again I extend the invitation to those of you who have never seen the amazing sight of "crow-leaved" trees, come to Auburn about 1/2 hr. before dark. Just sit & watch from one of the shopping centers or drive on 5 & 20 (the Arterial) & 326 from Union Springs. Be sure to watch for the hundreds of robins that flock with them. What a beautiful day to be out birding even tho' it was extremely windy. Forty-eight degrees felt wonderfully mild, as long as we weren't in the wind. Looking forward to reading what the group saw today around the lake. Did anyone go down Sweazy Rd. to look for the A. Screech Owl in the knothole in the tree just below the Cornell owned orchards? Fritzie -- 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/ --
