Good Morning Bird Day

Blue Jay

Mourning Dove

White-throated Sparrow

Downy Woodpecker

Seen out and around the yard this morning. 

Good Bird

Despite a week busy with hay and such, we saw some decent birds. One was lifer for me, a Louisiana Waterthrush, not a rare bird, but a kind of dull, secretive ground-dwelling warbler.

We went down to the river the other day. It was low and as in fall and spring I could walk right up the edge to the aqueduct. There, shuttling around in the phragmites, bobbing like a sandpiper was the waterthrush.

Just call me Mr. Blue
Indigo Bunting

 I was quite thrilled. Yesterday rain once again shut down haying operations plus a spring broke on the baler. No parts on Sunday so we are going to give Montezuma a go today if everything works out all right. Fingers crossed.

One of August's most reliable singers....

Week of Birds

Baby Grackles. Their parents have utterly fouled...or should it be fowled...my garden pond,
dumping fecal sacs into it. Can't wait until they fledge.

LOTS of these around this year

Brown Thrasher. They nest in the wild roses near the lawn

Baby Starling, yippee skippy

Mi Vida NOCA

I know, I know, it's Mi Vida Loca. But since we sold the cows and our world contracted to a microcosm of its former self, I have kept myself entertained with birds...as you have no doubt noticed....

So for me it has become mi vida NOCA, the latter being the four digit code for Northern Cardinal. BTW I am learning this code for listing because it is a lot quicker to write RWBL than it is to scribble Red-winged Blackbird. I keep hoping the FBI will snoop on one of my lists and think I am a super spy.

It's fun and it gets me and the boss out of the house. He likes to tool around town to see who has a nice barn, who bought a new tractor, whose rows are straight and whose are curly.

I like to find ticks for my lists.

It's kinda loca, but it works for us.

Anyhow, yesterday in the midst of cold howling wind, he needed to go over to Fonda to get a gallon of milk. He asked if I wanted to go down to the boat launch. Since we had seen Green-winged Teal there the day before and listed them on eBird, I agreed despite the nasty weather. GWTE are among my favorite ducks right up there with Ruddy Ducks and Northern Pintails. When the sun hits those green heads there isn't a thing in Oz to compare.

As we arrived another gentleman did too. He was tall and well dressed and sported good binoculars. Ooohhh, a birder! I have only ever met one other birder in our travels, up at Montezuma a while back.

I so wanted to go over and chat, but just couldn't (see introvert, shy, etc.)

Next he took a huge spotting scope out of his car, put it on a tripod, and began scanning the hundreds of geese, scattering of assorted ducks, crows, RWBLs etc. I was consumed with curiosity.

Then he began to fold everything up to leave...and came over to talk to us!

He had come because someone had reported Green-winged Teal there. Maybe it was even my eBird report that sent him down to the confluence of the Schoharie and the Mohawk.

Anyhow, we chatted for a minute or two about the birds there and about Iceland Gulls, which are seen around here now and then, and which I think I may have seen, and then he was on his way. A couple of Bald Eagles sailed by as if in celebration.

It was a little on the loca side, but super cool as well. You simply never know when serendipity will send you a special moment in your wonderful, amazing, and frequently crazy life.

A Gift to Myself

After Christmas with a toddler...a very good little toddler, who when given a gift and being told it was from...say, Aunt Becky....tried to give it to that person, being hard pressed to understand that it was all for her.....and saying "thank you" faithfully and often....

Some quiet time was in order. Most of the family was out in-lawing, all was reasonably calm here...

So I took myself out to do an eBird checklist.




It is sunny, warm for December, too icy to go far, and the wrong time of day for many birds. However, it was a great pleasure, indeed a gift, to just be able to be outdoors for an hour, alone with the birds. My kinda Christmas!

And tomorrow is the Johnstown Christmas Bird Count. The weather is supposed to be nasty, but we have some good wooded places where the birds will be sheltering from the weather. It's always fun.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Corn snow and snowmobile tracks make for pretty good walking

Good Birds

White-throated Sparrow

It froze hard last night, so although the walking wasn't great, it was possible so I went out on a little half-mile count. 

250 Canada Geese

11 Mallards

Mourning Dove

Assorted small birds 

One Red-tailed Hawk.

And the highlight of the day, a male Common Merganser winging it west along the river. I saw him from the driveway so he counts, right? He is getting added to the farm count, which has stalled badly the last few weeks.

Downy Woodpecker

Duck, Duck, Goose

First the duck. The white on this duck is actually white, not an artifact of the light in the photo. I have put it up on every bird group I belong to and no one has ventured a suggestion of what it might be. Leucistic something or other or some kind of duck we don't recognize? any ideas?

It was hanging with a bunch of Blue-wined Teal.

And then the goose....er......geese.....as you may guess we went up to Montezuma Sunday, before visiting Sundae on the Farm later in the day.

And finally....swan lake

Happiness Is

Some volunteers

Being too young for the Senior Citizens' Day free admission at Altamont Fair. There are only a handful for which I am still not old enough to qualify.....

Getting off easy in last night's storm. Some wind and lightning, but nothing too awful. There sure has been some violent weather the past few weeks. Not really all that unusual for a NY August, but the constant heat and humidity makes it seem worse.

Are more welcome

Helping bring along the next generation of birders. I was coming downstairs from putting laundry on the bars when I heard a LOT of peeping around the front porch. I went to the screen, but it was so dim, with approaching bad weather that I couldn't tell what the birds were even though I could see them.

So I pished a bit through the screen door and soon had a porch full of YOY Carolina Wrens. There were at least 8 around. Peggy came out and asked what I was doing, so I yielded my place to her mother, thinking she could call them up so Peggy could see them.

Seriously, they were coming over a couple of inches from the screen. Not much bolder than a wren. Liz couldn't get them to come back in but Peggy started squeaking at them and they came right over.

Than others

I wish you could have seen her face when she came and told me all about it! Soon they wandered over to the sitting porch and began noodling around all the flowers, while hummingbirds were drilling for nectar. I hope this year they are savvy enough to head south. I hate losing them every February when it gets really cold.

Getting a year bird yesterday...they are awfully thin this year. Anyhow, as I was cussing out JRT Mack for hauling me off the step in his rush to go potty hunt, I glanced up and saw a distant black outline flying east to west. 

Great Blue Heron. Cannot believe it has taken me into the second half of August to count one here on the farm. With the river nearby and a tasty stream full of frogs in the center of the place I usually see them much earlier.

So many missing species this year. Bad luck or some other thing I do not know, but even the Great Crested Flycatcher has been elusive. We normally see them or hear them daily in summer. No Green Heron either, another normal spring and summer bird.

No Upland Sandpiper. Only four warbler species. I sure hope approaching autumn livens things up. It doesn't help that I can only walk a little way but still......I haven't even seen a Yellow-Rumped Warbler yet.

Almanac

This is how it was birding this morning. This is a power wire in the cow barnyard.
Note: two Mourning Doves, one Indigo Bunting, and a very ticked off Robin
 that was trying to feed honeysuckle berries to nestlings somewhere

While the cat's away.....

The boss is off to Empire Farm Days today. I hope he is having a good time and not suffering too badly from the heat. Meanwhile, this mouse is having a fine time.

From the unusual phone call department comes one from his orthodontic surgeon, who is repairing the damage from the car accident. Early this morning the doctor's receptionist called. Visions of missed appointments flashed through my head, but no, the doctor's cows were out on the road and she was looking for someone with a horse trailer to haul them home. I truly wished I could help her, but there was not much I could do. Alas, I don't drive, and by the time he made it home from Seneca Falls the cows could have walked back to the farm...

And that's not all.....

Despite being the last full month of summer, August has plenty to show us.

Gold finches flutter all day in the rudbeckia like so many flying flowers. They are the exact same color. There are so many that it is a challenge to get a remotely accurate count when I want to do an eBird checklist. They are simply everywhere.

For every bird that has taken to the airwaves and headed south there is some other species still busily rearing young. Two sets of robin parents were still feeding nestlings this morning and a young Northern Flicker was following its parents around begging vociferously. Catbirds appear to have kids as well.

There are advantages to being a gimp for a while. It took me a very long time to walk over to the barn and up to the crossroad to the T-field this morning, but what a lot of birds I saw.... 28 species in all. (It takes me a long time to walk anywhere btw.)

Then, as I was standing dead still, listening and watching for movement right behind the barn, I heard a sharp cracking from the bushes. There is a deer trail there....maybe about four feet from where I was waiting....

Sure enough after a few seconds a doe thrust her head out of the bushes right in front of me. I stood frozen waiting to see what she would do. Had the wind been different I might have even gotten a photo, but it was almost exactly from me to her.

With a loud WOOF! and a lot more crackling, she was gone back down the hill. I think she was an old one, as her face was pretty grizzled. Deer, by the way, are not always the quiet, wily things their reputation would have you believe.

The highlight of the trip was a Black-and-White Warbler busily feeding right next to the barn gate. Although they are not terribly rare, the last one I saw was on our blacksmith's garage roof before Magnum was born. Anyone who knew him can figure about how long ago that was. (Hint...I was still thin and blonde, and he's been gone over a decade...oh, and he lived to be 32.)

It was an amazingly crisply-marked and tidy little bird, and obligingly gave both its song and chip call so I could have a good listen.

I have really missed walking out and although this was a short, and really, really slow walk, it was a lot of fun.

Flicker family

To the Swamp

Gulls and Caspian Terns

Pied-billed Grebe (Photo by Alan)

Many of the pools were lined with goose down. Pillow fight anyone?

We did a quick run up to Montezuma National Wildlife refuge yesterday and drove around the main loop. No time for the side pools, but we had a great time.

Saw a good number of Caspian Terns...normally only one or two, some ducks, many Pied Billed Grebes, a few American Coots, and a nice flock of Black Terns, which I particularly enjoy.

Yesterday's Dark-eyed Junco was unusual enough to warrant a query from eBird, which I thought was very cool. I discussed it with the data reviewer, he was quickly convinced and is interested in the White-eyed Vireo Alan is pretty sure he is seeing regularly. 

Big Day

Today is Global Big Day 2016. What with all the birdie bounty we enjoy here I thought I might play along. Yesterday evening Alan and I took a wonderful walk out scouting, and finally picked up an Eastern Towhee for the yearlong farm count.

The sheer numbers of birds we saw was astonishing. 

Since the boss and I took our walk  a couple of days ago, the Bobolink and Red-winged Blackbird populations have skyrocketed. Hundreds of Bobolinks. Lots of Common Yellowthroats, Yellow Warblers, and other birds of interest as well.

Here's how the Big Day count went. (Had the day's 10,000 steps done by noon.)

She just showed up today and she looks terrible.

 5 AM first bird American Robin

7:30 AM-24 species and  I haven't even actually started birding and haven't left the house and driveway behind the house....just been out airing the dogs and hanging up the laundry.

Such drama! I went out to discourage a chipmunk and discovered both red and grey squirrels marauding around the place. A red was trying to get nestlings from a Common Grackle nest in the old blue spruce. Up and down the trunk it raced, big black birds in hot pursuit. I scared it away, but I am sure it returned as soon as I went back in the house. It's pretty much welcome to the darned grackles, but we have dozens of other birds nesting in the yard....... I don't know what's up with the arboreal rodents this year, but there are too darned many of them.

Anyhow, we are off to the fields again soon.

Later.....Alan took antifreeze and water way up in back to the skid steer where it overheated yesterday. The boss fixed the rest of the heifer pasture fence while Becky and I walked for birds. We crawled under the fence to the south and met Alan in Seven-county Hill Field to sight in some rifles. 

He started teaching Becky to shoot and within minutes I could hear her pinging the targets....I was over in another field birding.

A good place for the shooting range

1:50 PM-40 species and still counting.Picked up a couple first of year birds for the farm count too, Ring-Necked Pheasant and Barn Swallow. Keeping on keeping on...

3:00 PM...roughly....a life bird shows up right in the cottonwood across the driveway. A Cerulean Warbler. What a beautiful little bird! What a perfect day to show up!

Looks like we are only going to hit the low 40s for numbers this year, which isn't all that shabby. However, once upon a summer haying day, many long years ago when Grandma Peggy was still with us, I spotted 52 species in one day. I don't suppose I will ever top that.


  .

Montezuma

Purple Martins

I was expecting a less than stellar weekend. Alan was supposed to have to work straight through and be in DC for the next couple of weeks with no breaks. Then last night he called, late, but on his way home. I figured he would be too tired to do much, but he was up bright and early and said, "Let's go to Montezuma."

And so we did. 

Blue-winged Teal

Best day birding ever. We saw so many thousand birds it was insane. 

At least seven. Or maybe eight. Or maybe more, Bald Eagles, hunting right under the observation tower where we were standing. They were so impressive and amazing and all, that I cut my hand on the tower railing, said ouch, and never stopped watching. Climbed down and discovered that I was bleeding all over the place....just made sure I didn't drip all over my stuff and went right on birding. Alan had to chase me down with a Band-aid.

Rusty Blackbird yea or nay?
 *Update:verified! First I've seen in decades. Identified them by learning their song and listening for them in groups of more common blackbirds

I am pretty sure I spotted Rusty Blackbirds. I have photos, and just need to get them checked out by wiser birders.

Osprey

Talked to a fellow on one of the observation platforms that informed us about a lot of what he could see or had seen with his better than ours equipment. That is one thing I have missed...other birders to talk to like that. I am mostly self-taught (and thus personally to blame for all my bad IDs), and meeting someone like that was pretty cool.

What a day! What a place!

Saw Ruddy Ducks, the most improbable chestnut color, bobbing up from dives like so many bathtub toys. Cutest things ever. As always we are going to need help with one gull and some sandpipers. They are so HARD!

A tentative list of what we spotted and ID'd

Canada Goose
Caspian Tern
Arctic Tern (according to the bird man...all I could tell is that they were medium-sized terns)
Greater Yellowlegs
Solitary Sandpiper
Killdeer

Great Blue Heron
Lesser Scaup
American Wigeon

Northern Shoveler

Northern Shoveler
Green-winged Teal
Blue-winged Teal
Northern Pintail
Ruddy Duck
American Coot
Mallard
Wood Duck
Hooded Merrganser
Common Merganser
Bald Eagle
Red-tailed Hawk
Osprey (Flying, as well as feeding chicks on a nest)
Turkey Vulture
Northern Harrier
Kestrel
American Robin
European Starling
Common Grackle
Rock Pigeon
Northern Mockingbird
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Red-winged Blackbird
Rusty Blackbird (?)
Belted Kingfisher
Northern Rough-Winged Swallow
Tree Swallow (thousands)
Barn Swallow
Purple Martin
American Crow
Some small sandpipers yet to be identified. Update: Dunlin, and I figured it out all by myself and then had it verified. Go me. lol
And probably more that I missed getting on the list because there was so much to see. 
What a day!

A Bald Eagle had just passed putting up hundreds and hundreds of ducks
You can see a few of them here