This was my first full year of "serious" birding thanks to an upgrade in binoculars. It's been a memorable year.
Highlights in the Cayuga Basin for me were: the elusive Tufted Duck, the American Avocet at Montezuma last winter, the Great Horned Owl and her two chicks, the massive Snow Geese cloud landing on Cayuga Lake, all of the local waterfowl, learning to bird my yard by ear, ......shorebirds on the SFO NJ trip, hawk migration, seeing and hearing the Woodcock fly up/down with Bob's SFO group, the Eastern Screech Owl on Suan's infrared camera and later watching the tagging of a Northern Saw-whet Owl at John Confer's house, hearing the Short-eared Owl barking on Ann's outing, Snowy Owl in the middle of a snowy field in Interlaken with Dave Nutter, and so much more! Highlights from my back yard in Fall Creek: the Red-tailed Hawk and squirrel drama, seeing five different warblers this fall. Osprey circling Fall Creek daily for weeks, Kingfisher flybys at the end of every day in summer, Merlin eating Black-capped Chickadee in Norway Maple, Eastern Screech Owl trilling from Ithaca Falls area, Turkey Vulture flybys (way up high), ...am still waiting for the two Red-headed Woodpeckers to return to my feeder. Thank you CBC officers/members who keep the club going and leaders of trips and presenters at meetings for sharing your time, knowledge, and experience and thank you to SFO and CLO staff. Our lives are richer as a result! and if we are lucky, maybe we'll inspire others to watch and advocate for conservation. (I'm happy to say my 21 year old daughter has the birding bug now!) I finally uploaded film footage taken last March of thousands of Snow Geese landing on Cayuga Lake. Only a few minutes of the total thirty minutes or so of the footage was accepted by Youtube, enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt9oSHN5_6w&google_comment_id=z13ihnjgkri4sphjd04cgtyhqr3sz1h4owo0k&google_view_type#gpluscomments Happy New Year, and I hope to see many of you at the Christmas Bird Count potluck! Sandy -- 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/ --
