This is a re-send; it apparently did not go through. Meanwhile I've just (2:30pm) gotten a
rare bird alert from Tim Lenz of a PACIFIC LOON flying north toward Sheldrake Point.
--Dave Nutter
rare bird alert from Tim Lenz of a PACIFIC LOON flying north toward Sheldrake Point.
--Dave Nutter
This morning (Sunday 31 October 2010) Bob McGuire, Stuart Krasnoff, & I
went to Taughannock point at dawn to watch the loon migration. Indeed there
was a stiff chilly northwest wind but it took awhile for us to find loons in the skies.
Eventually we saw southbound individuals and spread out groups of up to about ten,
with a total somewhere near a hundred. As is typical a few individuals were seen
turning back north, and when the light got good enough we could see 14 COMMON
LOONS swimming offshore with an attendant flock of gulls. We also saw a pair of
local RED-TAILED HAWKS inland over the park, a NORTHERN HARRIER flying
west over the lake directly overhead, a BELTED KINGFISHER flying north low over
the water, several small flocks of DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANTS and CANADA
GEESE, a southbound flock of possible WHITE-WINGED SCOTERS, a southbound
flock of ~200 ICTERIDS over the eastern ridge, and hundreds of GULLS rising off
of northern Lansing. Other than MALLARDS, the waterfowl in flight were hard to ID
due to low light, backlighting, distance, etc. I welcome news from any observers at
Myers Point or elsewhere early this morning.
We also went to Sheldrake, where we found more COMMON LOONS on the water:
64 from the cliff top at the corner of 141 & 153, 98 from #7732 somewhere north of
O'Malley's, and fewer or more obscurely seen individuals at other locations. Also
from the Sheldrake area Bob found us a male CANVASBACK among a group of
5 COMMON MERGANSERS and at least 3 BUFFLEHEAD, and we saw several
AMERICAN BLACK DUCKS, 2 female and 1 male HOODED MERGANSER, and a
flyby trio of SCAUP. Looking north from the cliffs north of Sheldrake point we saw
an intriguiing bird not far from shore. Closer views of the area produced a COMMON
LOON and a PIED BILLED GREBE. We saw no other grebes this morning, not
even when Bob & I continued to Dean's Cove, but there we saw a/the adult
LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL on a dock to the south and individual COMMON
LOONS, HERRING, RING-BILLED and (1) GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL.
We saw no swallows, Cave nor otherwise, but land birds did include:
MOURNING DOVE,
RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER,
NORTHERN FLICKER,
BLUE JAY
AMERICAN CROW,
BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE,
TUFTED TITMOUSE,
AMERICAN ROBIN,
EUROPEAN STARLING,
DARK-EYED JUNCO,
RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD,
AMERICAN GOLDFINCH,
HOUSE SPARROW,
It was a good taste of winter birding. Even though the intermittent precipitation
was only spitting rain and mainly while we were driving between stops, we all got chilled.
--Dave Nutter
