For this morning's Stewart Park bird walk, I wasn't expecting to see much given the strong south winds overnight and line of rain early, and sure enough, the waterfowl and warbler variety was lacking and nonexistent, respectively (just mallards and canada geese and a distant common merganser). But to compensate, a posse of juvenile bald eagles put on quite the show, flying back and forth as if playing in the wind, one flying in with a small fish, one starting to "go bald". By the swan pen a belted kingfisher landed a few branches behind a small streaky brown raptor, a young merlin, who sat and preened and posed for great looks. Double-crested cormorants lined the entire length of the red jetty, while the white jetty hosted ring-billed, herring, and great black-backed gulls. A young green heron attended the swan pen, while a great blue heron flew overhead. We later saw at least three great blue herons perched variously below jetty woods, while juvenile bald eagles perches on several snags above. Another merlin flew around fall creek before perching for good looks at its whiter breast: an adult this time.
Later at the second Migration Celebration bird walk around Sapsucker Woods, things were relatively quiet though with enough "usuals" to keep the participants happy. There was one fleeting naked-eye look at a yellow-colored magnolia-ish warbler at Sherwood Platform, and some red-eyed vireos in the woods, and back at the pergola the woodpeckers put on quite a show, at one point a downy and hairy perched side-by-side as I reached for my invisible camera. The best bird of the morning was probably the Swainson's Thrush who flew first into the larger island then onto the big GBH snag. Suan -- 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/ --
