So, as I mentioned in my post yesterday, I had a full day of birding in before the Short-eared Owl extravaganza at the Shawangunk Grasslands. In the morning I did a tour of the Black Dirt Region, mostly hoping to find a Snowy Owl or perhaps an interesting goose. I failed to locate either, but instead had an interesting morning with a good number of passerines at various locations. I had nearly 30 species in the black dirt, and for me the hightlight was a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker which was seen on Onion Avenue in Goshen.
BLACK DIRT REGION 12/14/14
Canada Goose
Mallard
Great Blue Heron
Black Vulture
Northern Harrier
Bald Eagle
Red-tailed Hawk
Rough-legged Hawk
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon)
Mourning Dove
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
American Kestrel
Blue Jay
American Crow
Horned Lark
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
European Starling
American Tree Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
Red-winged Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
American Goldfinch
In the early afternoon I headed over the Newburgh Waterfront to try and pick up a couple of county birds that I needed – with the end of the year looming, I am trying to maximize my Orange County species list. I was looking for a Great Black-backed Gull and a Great Cormorant (both of which Bruce Nott had reported being there earlier in the week), and I was successful on both counts:
After Newburgh, I headed over to the Shawangunk Grasslands as I wrote about in yesterday’s post. I stopped at Blue Chip Farms long enough to get this shot of a European Starling:
And finally, here are a few more shots of the Short-eared Owls at the Shawangunk Grasslands NWR, all on 12/14/14:
