Birdathon 2010

Hi folks. Been a busy week of birding for me here in central New York. On May 15 I joined Bill Purcell, Kevin McGann and Chris Spagnoli for the annual OAS Birdathon. The weather was cool and quite windy but we still had a decent day. Highlights included a calling NORTHERN SAW-WHET OWL on Salt Road (doing just the “saw-whet” squeal thing... still never heard the typical tooting song), at least two singing SEDGE WRENS in West Monroe, a calling WHIP-POOR-WILL and two BRANT in Constantia, the resident RED-HEADED WOODPECKER at the end of Nine Mile Point Road and 25 species of warbler including my first ever female CAPE MAY WARBLER. We ended our day with a total of 143 and came in first place in the competition. My month-of-May list is now at 190 and I've still got a handful of “easy” migrants to get (Lincoln's Sparrow, Swainson's Thrush, Bay-breasted Warbler, etc). Here are some of the prettier birds I saw this week:

Scarlet TanagerA leucistic Canada GooseNashville WarblerNorthern ParulaProthonotary WarblerBlack-throated Blue Warbler