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Sunday, May 22, 2022

97

 

A sleepy mama Downy Woodpecker
peeks out of her nest hole at Yankee Hill Lock

Yesterday, area educator and extraordinary birder, George Steele, and I attempted a "Century Run".

That is, we set out to find one hundred species of birds in 24 hours in a given area, in this case Fulton and Montgomery Counties.


Some of my favorite people are redheads too
Female Common Merganser

It was hot and humid and the sun was like a hammer on a red-hot anvil, banging away all day. It was still a lot of fun, although I sure envied the swimmers at Caroga Lake. That water looked inviting.


This horse we passed is for Liz...thought of you when I saw it

 We traveled many miles, some by car, some on foot, and we even climbed down into a steep ravine (and back out too!) We started out well before dawn, and returned around 13 hours later.


Common Grackle looks as if he belongs on the bench
with a gavel in his wing...just call me "your honor)

Best birds of the day for me were a good number of warblers I was missing, including Prairie and Blackburnian, an obliging American Bittern, right where Ralph spotted one two years ago, and a distant Barred Owl answering George's hooting calls from far across the water at Willie Marsh.




We saw a number of gorgeous waterfalls. (I think I drank at least one waterfall's worth of water along the way trying to stay hydrated in the energy-zapping heat.)


I was as green as this water with envy
Mr. Turtle looks pretty chill

My favorite water of the day was my shower at the end of it though.


Green Heron

*We ended the day with 97 species, not too shabby what with the heat and all...

**Of course this morning when Ralph and I went out for a couple of hours, as we do most days, we promptly found the Osprey we missed yesterday, a Brown Thrasher ditto, and a nice batch of assorted sandpipers that we missed yesterday. 

***Thanks George for braving that awful heat so we could count birds.


Checking out Bank Swallows in a distant sand quarry
(Yes, they were there)

A smile a minute

2 comments:

Jacqueline Donnelly said...

Now, that's dedication! I'm glad your suffering was rewarded with so many marvelous sightings.

threecollie said...

Jacqueline, it was an amazing day, and we did our best. However, I ran into another, much better, birder a few days later. He and his team went out from 2 AM to 10 PM and got 132 species! I think I need to slink away into the sunset. LOL It was fun other than the hideous heat, which was...well...hideous.