Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!leah!gmr044
From: gmr044@leah.Albany.Edu (Gregg Recer)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Story time: Winter birding can be fun!
Keywords: rough-legged hawk, snow buntings, horned larks, pine siskins
Message-ID: <2273@leah.Albany.Edu>
Date: 11 Dec 89 20:44:20 GMT
Organization: The University at Albany, Computer Services Center
Lines: 47


Hi all,
     I thought I'd relate a day trip we made to the wilds of central,
upstate NY this past weekend.  There's a lot of open, rolling farm
country to the south and west of the Albany area and these spots can
be pretty interesting in the winter.  About 1.5 hr west of Albany lies
rural Montgomery County.  We set off there in the desperate hope of
seeing some short-eared owls which we had heard report of earlier in
the week.  Of course, due to practical considerations we arrived in
the designated area at about 1:00 in the afternoon so owls were pretty
unlikely.  Nevertheless, it was a pleasant day, almost a heat wave at
about 25F, so we stopped at various places along the farm roads to see
what we could see.  Fate must have decided to repay us for the
impossibility of finding the owls because the first birds we saw were
a flock of pine siskins sitting in the middle of the road.  We rolled
the car up within only a few feet of them and watched as they sat
there ignoring us.  These happen to have been life-birds for both me
and my wife so the day was already a success.  Pine siskin sightings
seem to be pretty common around our area so far this season; maybe a
sign of a good winter-finch year.

     We found plenty of non-owl raptors in the open fields we
searched.  Rough-legged hawks were the predominant species.  We saw
about six light morph birds and two dark morphs.  Surprisingly we only
saw one red-tailed hawk and no harriers.  We also saw one Am. kestrel.

On the "little dickey bird" front we found horned larks, snow buntings
and dark-eyed juncos.  The other intersting thing was a red-bellied
woodpecker.  By the Peterson range map this species doesn't typically
occur this far north; however they seem to be expanding their range
northward.

Our total species count was less than 20 but for this time of year we
were pretty happy.

Gregg



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     "In future you should delete the words crunchy frog and 
     replace them with the legend crunchy raw unboned real
     dead frog!!"  
                 -- Inspector Bradshaw, The Hygiene Division

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