We had similar birds as Dave described in Derby Hill, and Dave forgot to mention a Raven that flew over when we were at the 'snipe' spot at junction of 3 and 104B. We also saw a COOPERS HAWK and a BROWN THRASHER while on the 'hill'.
We split off from Derby Hill to Sterling Nature Center, with one of our group member Debra who is familiar with the locations in Sterling forest. We saw an impressive group of herons in a rookery. Some nests seemed very clumsily built, but most of them had a heron sitting on the nest. In some cases, we could only see herons crest plume waving in the wind. On one nest when the partners exchanged the spot for brooding, it looked like one white puffball rose up and settled down once the parent landed. It might have been fed by the arriving heron and then settled to brood to protect the young from cold air. There was a pair of Ospreys that are thinking of settling down here. They put up a nice show for us. Some members saw them mating briefly. One of the partners, we presumed male got a clump of grass or roots and flew very high in the air while calling and came down like woodcock kind of dance and settled on a dead tree which we presume would be their future home. A heron's nest is pretty close by and it looks over the would be Osprey nest. So I wonder how it would be for the young herons to watch over activities of young ospreys. It should be a fun place to be. We also saw a pair of Trumpeters, who actually came down to us for a hand outs I think. Still a pair of Buffleheads and Ring-necked Ducks hung around on the pond with a lonely looking Pied-billed Grebe. We also saw a group of ducks that flew pretty fast, closest species I could think of was American Wigeons. Among non-feathered critters, Water snakes, which did not budge even an inch from the spots they were in, even when we got back from our visit to rookery after half an hour. We also saw an eastern Ribbon Snake. Over all it was not a bad day to be out and about. I forgot to mention a Glaucous Gull (based on its size) could not see the bill, as it crossed in front of our car on Oswego Bridge in downtown Oswego and flew upstream. Along the route I had a Purple Martin in Port Byron, a Grey Catbird in Derby hill, a flock of 8 or 9 waxwings that crossed the road about half km past lab exit on rt 13 north in the morning, by the color and size I think they could have been Bohemians but nobody else saw them. Meena Haribal Ithaca NY 14850 http://haribal.org/ http://meenaharibal.blogspot.com/ ________________________________ -- 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/ --
