{"id":9003,"date":"2019-02-16T19:16:54","date_gmt":"2019-02-17T00:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=9003"},"modified":"2019-02-16T19:17:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-17T00:17:02","slug":"a-good-long-day-02-16-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=9003","title":{"rendered":"A Good, Long Day, 02\/16\/19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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~CACKLING GOOSE at Lockenhurst Pond in Westtown, NY 02\/16\/19.~ <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Regular readers of this blog may remember that it took me 51 weeks in 2018 to get a CACKLING GOOSE in Orange County. Well, today I potentially had three. Which just shows you how crazy birding can be. First thing this morning I headed to Glenmere Lake, hoping for the ROSS’S GOOSE that Kathy Ashman had seen there earlier in the week. The Ross’s wasn’t present, but I did run into Kathy and we had some good birds, including one bird that looked to us like a sure Cackler and a second bird that looked pretty good, but was slightly larger with a slightly longer bill. See photo below, I’d love to hear any opinions on these birds. The birds stuck together the entire time we were there, a cute tiny couple. Other waterfowl present: Wood Ducks, Ring-necked Ducks, Canada Geese, Mute Swans, American Black Ducks, Mallards, Gadwalls, and a single LESSER SCAUP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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~I’ll be interested to hear opinions on the bigger of these 2 birds – both birds were significantly smaller than the surrounding Canadas, and although the photo doesn’t show it that well, both had a lighter, frosty look to them. CACKLING GEESE (GOOSE?) at Glenmere Lake, 02\/16\/19.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I tooled around the black dirt and then took a walk at Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge’s Liberty Marsh; it was actually pretty quiet and I had mostly the usuals including White-crowned Sparrows at two locations. On Onion Avenue there was a large flock of mixed blackbirds – perhaps 1,000 birds or so, nearly all Red-winged Blackbirds with a sprinkling of Brown-headed Cowbirds, Common Grackles, and European Starlings thrown in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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~Mixed blackbird flock – mostly Red-winged Blackbirds, but I also see Brown-headed Cowbirds, E. Starlings, and a single Common Grackle.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My final stop in southern OC was at Lockenhurst Pond. This is the small pond on Route 284 in Westtown, NY; I just looked it up to see what it was actually called. While I was there I sifted through the flock of approximately 400 Canada Geese and eventually located another CACKLING GOOSE. This bird looks good to me, see top photo as well as below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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~CACKLING GOOSE at Lockenhurst Pond in Westtown NY, 02\/16\/19.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After a late lunch, I headed up to the Newburgh Waterfront to try for more waterfowl and gulls. I had only the 3 expected species of gull, and for waterfowl the only noteworthy species was 9 Northern Pintails. I can only remember one other time having NOPIs on the Hudson River. Just as it was starting to get dark and I was thinking about heading home, I saw something I’ve not seen before. A group nearly 60 Canada Geese flew in and landed on the river. I don’t know if they were out in the fields all day, or if they just finished a long flight, but as soon at they landed all the birds were drinking from the river. I found it sweet to see 60 Canadas sipping away as the sun set.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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~Ring-billed Gull in flight over the Hudson River, Newburgh Waterfront 02\/16\/19.~ <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regular readers of this blog may remember that it took me 51 weeks in 2018 to get a CACKLING GOOSE in Orange County. Well, today I potentially had three. Which just shows you how crazy birding can be. First thing this morning I headed to Glenmere Lake, hoping for the ROSS’S GOOSE that Kathy Ashman … Continue reading “A Good, Long Day, 02\/16\/19”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,15,3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orangecounty","category-rarities","category-swimmingwaterbirds","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-2ld","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9003"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9013,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9003\/revisions\/9013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}