Watching the movement of snow geese from my office in the Veterinary Research
Tower today has been quite interesting. Almost all flocks have made a wide arc
northeast (coming from the direction of Mt. Pleasant) of the tower that brings
them over Cayuga Heights and then they drop down toward
While walking the dogs late yesterday afternoon I explored the abandoned
stretch of Mineah Rd. off of Mt. Pleasant. At the far end of this stretch
where the road disappears into a thicket I found a single eastern towhee
accompanied by three fox sparrows and a couple of singing song sparrows.
I live a few houses down from Marie and it is remarkable how delayed things are
on the hill this year. We have lived here for three years and this is the
first year that the Orioles have shown any interest in orange slices that we
leave for them. The previous two years they have routinely fed
Our feeders have been inundated this morning by large numbers of red-winged
blackbirds (40+), rusty blackbirds (20+) and two common grackles. The flock
has currently evacuated the premises leaving behind the usual group of house
finches, red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatch, goldfinches,
A female evening grosbeak was at our feeder station for about an hour this
morning. Other nesting birds that have returned to their usual territory on or
near our property in the last couple of days include chestnut-sided warbler,
ovenbird, wood thrush, Baltimore oriole, and rose-breasted
The great blue heron rookery in Malloryville, between Red Mill Rd. and West
Malloryville Rd and best viewed from Fall Creek Rd., has been repopulated by
returning great blue herons over the last few days. My daughters and I counted
seven there late this afternoon, all occupying different nests
There is a flock of about 75 redpolls currently feeding along the shoulder and
in the fruit trees directly across from the Cornell orchard store. I don't
know if they will last, but they didn't seemed concerned when I stopped right
next to them.
Andrew Millet
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Cayugabirds-L List Info:
We had a nice group of 9 common redpolls at our feeders today. They stayed
for about 20 minutes before taking off to the south just a little while ago,
perhaps to visit Marie's feeders. There was also a single dark morph legged
hawk hunting over Mt. Pleasant early this morning.
Cheers-
This morning while running along Midline Rd there was a small flock of Evening
Grosbeaks feeding in small fruit trees about 1/10th of a mile past Hunt Hill Rd
as you head towards Irish Settlement on the left side of the road. There were
at least 10 females and 2 stunning males.
Other birds
Any dead wildlife in New York State can be submitted to the NYS wildlife health
unit if the circumstances are appropriate. There is a facility in Delmar as
well as one here associated with the NYS diagnostic laboratory next to the
veterinary college. However, the reporting and submission of
For the last two weeks we have had 1-2 evening grosbeaks at the feeder;
however, this morning we were overwhelmed by a flock of ~30 birds with a
roughly 70:30 ratio of females to males. They have been very flighty and have
been spooked several times by passing ravens and most recently headed
A field sparrow joined the current sparrows (song, white-throated, and a lone
fox) at our feeder station this morning picking through the snow. We last had
a redpoll at our Nyjer feeder on Monday of this week. We were also visited by
a hermit thrush scratching under the feeder station this
A single white-crowned sparrow appeared at our feeder station today, amongst a
plethora of white-throated sparrows, song sparrows, and several chipping
sparrows. A single redpoll appeared today as well after about a week without
one.
-A. Miller
Ringwood Rd. Freeville NY
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Cayugabirds-L
Errands took me up along the west side of the lake today and a few observations
of note (this was not really a birding trip, but the binoculars were in the car
and road trips go faster when I have my kids counting and looking for birds!).
The freezing fog rising off the lake in the early
Due to the rarity of this warbler, I thought that some might be interested in
the following. I found a window mortality Lawrence's warbler outside of the
Veterinary Research Tower on Cornell's campus this morning. Bird mortalities
have decreased here since they put new glass in about 6 years
As a follow up to this post, we hiked Fillmore Glen State Park this morning and
up high in the gorge, near where the gorge trail crosses there was a very
interesting Empidonax flycatcher pair. The birds were easily visible hawking
insects and the song was consistent with an Acadian Flycatcher.
A few new arrivals today including a male pine warbler, multiple white-throated
sparrows, yellow-bellied sapsucker, and an Eastern towhee. The other usual
suspects including purple and house finches, goldfinches, fox sparrow, hairy,
downy, red-bellied, pileated woodpeckers, juncos, titmice,
We had a Merlin at our house this afternoon (full credit to my kids who saw it
perched in a tree and knew it wasn't a bird they were familiar with). It
stayed around for about 15 minutes before heading East towards Yellow Barn Rd.
Fox sparrows have returned (3 yesterday) along with song
This morning at around 8:30 there was a single Black Vulture at the Tompkins
County recycling center (there may have been others as there was a tree of
vultures out behind the center). What I found interesting is where the black
vulture was. It was sitting on top of the Fork Over Tompkins
The long standing GBH rookery that is roughly half way between Freeville and
Mclean (northwest side of Fall Creek Road, in a large marshy area adjacent to
Fall Creek) started to repopulate yesterday and had almost every nest occupied
today. Roughly a dozen birds. The birds that nest here are
A jaunt from East Hill along the rail trail to Monkey Run and back through the
Botanic Gardens produced a number of warblers and other birds this morning
including:
Chesnut sided, blue-winged, yellow, common yellowthroat, overbird, hooded
(calling on the north side of Fall Creek near the
I came across two Common Snipe along North Rd in Dryden this afternoon, just
south of Dutcher Rd. They were quite close to the road, but hunkered down next
to a small pool at the edge of a corn field due to the weather.
-Andrew
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