{"id":9051,"date":"2019-03-09T19:34:04","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T00:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=9051"},"modified":"2019-03-09T19:34:13","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T00:34:13","slug":"a-good-day-03-09-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=9051","title":{"rendered":"A Good Day, 03\/09\/19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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~Rough-legged Hawk in the black dirt, 03\/09\/19.~ <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There were some good birds reported locally this week, so that gave me some targets for today. At first light I headed over to Glenmere Lake to try for the Red-necked Grebe that Kathy Ashman located yesterday, and fortunately bird was still present. Kathy also showed up, and the bird put on a pretty good show as it tried to swallow a fish that was just way too large. Eventually a Ring-billed Gull swooped in and stole the fish, putting a halt to the grebes attempts. Glenmere is one of the few lakes with open water in the county, and including the grebe, I had 10 species of waterfowl: Wood Ducks, Hooded Mergansers, Buffleheads, Mute Swans, Canada Geese, Mallards, American Wigeons, Ring-necked Ducks, and 2 COMMON GOLDENEYES.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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-A distant shot of the Red-necked Grebe with two Canada Geese at Glenmere Lake, 03\/09\/19. I sort of like this shot because to me it shows the profile of the RNGR well.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I then cruised the black dirt for a while – I had several large groups of Canada Geese, maybe around 5,000 total, I sifted through them all and unfortunately did not located any other species. I did alright for raptors; I had my first Sharp-shinned Hawk in the count for the year, several Red-tailed Hawks, Turkey Vultures, an American Kestrel on a wire, and I got some decent shots of a Rough-legged Hawk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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~Perched Rough-legged Hawk in the black dirt this morning, 03\/09\/19.~ <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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~Common Merganser on the Wallkill River in the black dirt, 03\/09\/19. These birds have such varying looks depending on the light.~ <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My next move was to head north to Ulster County to try for the Ross’s Goose that had been reported all week. I tried Bates Lane at Blue Chip Farms first, and I got lucky as another birder, Neil from the Schenectady was already on the bird when I arrived. He gave me a look in his scope, as the bird was at quite a distance, and I tried to get some documentary shots of the bird. It’s always good to see a Ross’s, and this bird is just the perfect beautiful example of the species. I made a quick stop at the Shawangunk Grasslands NWR, since I was so close, in spite of the parking lot being full of cars (at just after noon!) there were not many birds flying and I had only a single Turkey Vulture in the distance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had planned to head over to Cornwall to try for the Lesser Black-backed Gull that Bruce Nott found yesterday, but I ran out of time. I may try for that bird tomorrow. What a satisfying day of birding, I feel like we are on the verge of some really good birding in our area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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~I love this little bird. Ross’s Goose at Bates Lane in Ulster County, NY 03\/09\/19. I’d have loved to get a better look at this bird, but unfortunately it was miles out.~ <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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~Red-necked Grebe trying to choke down a massive fish at Glenmere Lake, 03\/09\/19~ <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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~Canada Geese in flight at Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge, 03\/09\/19~ <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n


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There were some good birds reported locally this week, so that gave me some targets for today. At first light I headed over to Glenmere Lake to try for the Red-necked Grebe that Kathy Ashman located yesterday, and fortunately bird was still present. Kathy also showed up, and the bird put on a pretty good … Continue reading “A Good Day, 03\/09\/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":[6,19,3,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orangecounty","category-photos","category-swimmingwaterbirds","category-ulster-county"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-2lZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9051","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=9051"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9060,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9051\/revisions\/9060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}