Today I made my annual pilgimmage to Doodletown Road. By the time I had climbed up Gray’s hill I had most of my target birds, with singing ceruleans, yellow-throated vireos, indigo buntings, a yellow billed cuckoo, a singing Louisiana waterthrush, a blue winged warbler, a worm-eating warbler, and hooded in the background. But when I ran into a bunch of Queens and Long Island birding buddies leaving the First June cemetery things really kicked up a notch.
After a stop at the other June cemetery, we headed up Doodletown road to see if the Kentucky warbler was in it’s usual spot. On the way Eric Miller found a female Cape may warbler in a thin, bittersweet-covered tree. Then we saw an olive-sided flycatcher in a bare tree a bit further up the road. I had to take a personal call and missed the pileated in the woods past the stream. When I headed up the hill to see if I could catch up with it, the I got the surprise of the day. Eric called out that he has found a golden winged warbler in a meadow south of the road. It was a first at Doodletown for pretty much everyone there. We missed the Kentucky, but got scattering of other birds including multiple worm-eatings, ceruleans, cuckoos, a few more warblers found by Eric including magnolia, BT green, and canada, another olive sided flycatcher, and even a timber rattlesnake along Pleasant Valley road. When we were all done I had seen or heard 16 species of warbler for a great day of birding. Wishing you good birding days as well, Peter -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --