Category: Orange County

I got out and birded the black dirt region both Saturday and Sunday mornings, but compared to all the recent  Snowy Owl excitement, both days were relatively uneventful. Here’s a few things that folks might find interesting:

• On Saturday morning I had 9 Snow Geese among approximately 1200 Canada Geese at the Camel Farm.
• At Indiana Road on Saturday, I found 15 Snow Buntings in a flock of approximately 60 Horned Larks.
• Raptors were out in numbers, especially Red-tailed Hawks. I felt like you could not throw a rock without hitting a RTHA this weekend. Saturday morning I hit Pumpkin Swamp Road, Indiana Road, and Skinner Lane and had 13 Red-tailed Hawks! I also had several Northern Harriers at each location on both mornings. Additionally, over the span of the weekend, I saw 3 Rough-legged Hawks (Skinner, Wallkill River NWR, and Pumkin Swamp).

  

  SHORT-EARED OWL SURVEY

The highlight of my birding weekend was participating in the First Annual Unofficial Orange County Short-eared Owl Survey. The survey was organized by Curt McDermott and Rob Stone, who wanted an answer to the question of how many Short-eared Owls were currently in Orange County. The idea was to get birders out to known Short-eared Owl haunts both Saturday and Sunday evening to get a total for the county.  So, on Saturday evening, Karen Miller and I went out to our designated area to count, which was the Wallkill River NWR. The plan was to get the best count we could there and then shoot over to Scenic Farms Golf Course on Glenwood Road and get a count there. We had a fabulous evening, counting 10! SEOWs at Wallkill River NWR and then picking up an additional 5 at the golf course, totaling 15 for the evening. Late edit: It should be noted that  for the owls seen at Wallkill River NWR, for the purposes of this survey we are assuming that the birds pass back and forth over the county border as they work the open areas of the refuge (Thanks for keeping me in check Marianne!). On Sunday my spot was Pumpkin Swamp Road. It was really freezing cold, but it was worth it when I got a count of 6 SEOWs there. When all the locations were combined, the survey revealed a total of 31 Short-eared Owls in Orange County this weekend – very exciting!

There were a couple of notable sightings in Orange County on Wednesday 11/6/13. I received a call from Bruce Nott just after 9 am. He had located an American Bittern at the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge – Winding Waters Trail. The way I understand it, if you take a right at the fork in the trail, the bird was located in the first ditch that the trail crosses, on the right hand side out maybe a couple hundred yards. Congrats to Bruce on a great find.  I also received a text from Rob Stone. Out at Skinner Lane, among the Horned Larks, he had relocated the two Lapland Longspurs and also had 20+ Snow Buntings.

While I was at work, I was trying to decide which of these two sightings to go check out at the end of the day. Ultimately, my decision was made for me; I got out of work a little bit late and that made going for the bittern a bit of a time crunch. My desire for Snow Bunting photos made this an easy decision to accept. Once out at Skinner, I did see two Snow Buntings in flight with about 25 larks, but they never did get close enough for photos. The longspurs were not relocated. Fellow Mearns Bird Club members Bruce, Curt, Lee, and Debbie were also out at Skinner. It was nice to shoot the breeze with them for a while; actually it was the highlight of the evening.

On our way out we had a Ring-necked Pheasant in the road. It is always difficult for me when I see these birds. They are so beautiful and wonderful to see, but knowing that the bird was likely released to be hunted saddens me.  Lee and I clicked away, my best effort is at the top of this post.

I made a brief stop at Skinner Lane today after work to look for Snow Buntings. The Horned Larks had increased in number to somewhere between 75 and 100 birds. I did not have any luck with the buntings, but as I scanned the larks with my scope, I did manage to locate two LAPLAND LONGSPURS. Two things seemed to stand out about the longspurs. The first was was the obvious markings that form a dark frame on the cheek of the birds. The second is that they seemed to be moving differently than the surrounding larks, a little closer to the ground and more quickly too. I watched the birds for nearly a half hour in the scope, until they lifted up and I was unable to relocate them, mostly because it was getting pretty dark. This is a life bird for me, so I was of course very excited.  The birds were too far out for photos, but I will certainly try for photos in the upcoming days if the birds stick around.

Huge thanks once again to Rob Stone, if it wasn’t for him talking to me about it, I would not have even been out there looking for these birds.