Community
By: Pat Coate
My younger brother Tom (Andy, do you believe everything you read on the internet?) took this lovely silhouette picture in downtown Richmond. I appreciate his loyal reading of and contribution to the blog.
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Red-spotted Newt
Red-spotted Newt (red eft stage)
By: Pat Coate
While hiking at Allegany State Park, I came across two Red-spotted Newts. These salamanders go through three stages: 1) aquatic larval stage that is tadpole-like and body color is greenish yellow, 2) sub-adult, land-dwelling ‘red eft’ (there is a Scrabble word for you Kathy!) stage where round red spots with black borders develop and body becomes reddish orange or sometimes brown, and 3) aquatic adult stage where body turns olive-brownish and tail becomes rudder like. All the photos here are of the second, or red eft, stage.
Oatka Creek
Indigo Bunting
By: Pat Coate
Visited Oatka Creek with a fellow birder and blogger on July 3rd and returned on July 6th while I was up in the Rochester area. Many thanks to Jim for the guided tour, it is a great park with good habitat diversity. See Jim’s blog at http://ayearinoatka.blogspot.com.
Raccoon
Raccoon
By: Pat Coate
Had a recent and somewhat rare daytime encounter with this raccoon. The name raccoon has Native American roots and, per Wikipedia, means “one who rubs, scrubs and scratches with its hands”.
Wood Warblers
Mourning Warbler (male)
By: Pat Coate
A friend in Allegany has a wonderful farm and foothill property with a beautiful hiking loop through many habitats including corn fields, meadows, woods and pasture -a birders paradise. On a recent hike I came across two warblers I don’t often see – Mourning and Hooded Warblers, and both were obviously breeding in the area.
Savannah Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
By: Pat Coate
Love the thistle – was fun to try to get this guy with such a beautiful backdrop. Taken at Piney Tract in Pennsylvania.
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My Nemesis Bird – Finally Got It
Belted Kingfisher (female)
By: Pat Coate
Taking a break from the Roger Tory Peterson Festival this week to gloat over finally capturing a decent photo of a belted kingfisher. This is one of several nemesis birds – ones that I see fairly frequently but ones that prove quite uncooperative when I reach for the camera.
My typical encounter with these birds is that I hear one as it flies away from me up river. I might catch another glimpse further along as it flies further up river or crosses the river rattling away. I’ve managed a few photos but most were quickly deleted.
Clay-colored Sparrow
Clay-colored Sparrow
By: Pat Coate
These photos are also from Piney Tract (aka Mt. Zion Grasslands), near Sligo, PA. Piney Tract is a reclaimed strip mine that is now an Important Birding Area. The clay-colored sparrows we saw there were life birds for me.
On the drive down I was lucky to sit next to Robert Bochenek. He shared aspects of his very interesting career and life story, as well as many of the pictures he took throughout the Roger Tory Peterson Festival. I have included a picture he took of a clay-colored sparrow and will be sharing more over the next several weeks.
Henslow’s Sparrow
Henslow’s Sparrow
By: Pat Coate
The Roger Tory Peterson Birding Festival was held this past Friday and Saturday in and around Jamestown, NY. On Friday I joined about 15 others and we loaded up the Jamestown Audubon van, picked up a few more along the way and headed down to Piney Tract (aka Mt. Zion Grasslands), near Sligo, PA. Piney Tract is a reclaimed strip mine that is now an Important Birding Area and contains mostly grasslands habitat. The target birds were grassland sparrows – Henslow’s, Grasshopper and Clay-colored. We were 3 for 3 and all were life birds for me!
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Indigo Bunting
Indigo Bunting
By: Pat Coate
Happy to be heading to the birding festival sponsored by the Roger Tory Peterson Institute this weekend. Hope to see (and get a better picture of) Indigo Buntings, warblers, grassland sparrows and lots more.
Greg Miller of “The Big Year” fame will be speaking and co-leading one of the field trips. Should be a lots of fun.
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Red-winged Blackbirds
Red-winged Blackbird (male)
By: Pat Coate
We recently visited our daughter in Milwaukee and made a stop Bong Recreation Area in southeast Wisconsin on the way out. Bong Recreation Area bills itself as a ‘prairie pothole’. It contains grasslands as well as many shallow wetlands, or potholes. The prairie pothole region of the northern Great Plains is important for migratory waterfowl. As a side note, we learned that, for obvious reasons, signs for Bong Recreation Area are often stolen.
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April Snow
Male Cardinal
By: Pat Coate
The very mild winter we just had took the sting out of Monday’s forecast of 8-12 inches of snow. Despite snow falling all day, we actually ended up with just a few inches since the ground and roads were warm enough that a lot of the flakes just melted away.
We had a steady stream of visitors to the feeders, including the pictured male cardinal. Our backyard grackles got the worst of the storm. Snow building up on the hedge where they built their nest finally caused the hedge to topple over and spilt the nest to the ground.
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Horned Grebe
Horned Grebe (breeding plumage)
By: Pat Coate
While spending a wonderful weekend visiting my daughter in Milwaukee I snuck in a quick walk at one of the downtown parks along Lake Michigan. There were a number of interesting migrants in the area including a beautiful pair of Horned Grebes in breeding plumage.
Birch Run Ponds
Osprey
By: Pat Coate
Stopped by the Birch Run ponds to see if the osprey were back. A pair were back and seemed to be settling in to the nest. The short trip netted close to 25 species, including the song sparrow and juvenile red-tailed hawk pictured.
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Fun in the Woods and Lessons Learned
Stream in 9 Mile Forest
By: Pat Coate – Actually a special guest column this week by friend Kathy H. with an entertaining, well-written account of our recent adventures in the 9 Mile Forest.
“Pat and I began our hike at 2:15 pm. The rain/drizzle had stopped; skies were still heavy with clouds.
We walked in with a “solid” plan (mine): down to the stream as soon as we started to hear it, then follow along crossing springs as we met them staying on the right side of the main stream so that the road was to our right. Having just walked the stream two weekends ago I felt confident to just run in and out without my usual amount of water or my pack with necessities. Just grabbed a pack to hold leeks and a rain jacket and brought along one water.
Pat and I collected some leeks, appreciated the clean water, and took some pics. Wildflowers are just starting to emerge there. Today we saw flowers not quite open: spring beauties, hepatica and yellow violets. As we mosied along I noticed some familiar landmarks.
Wanted to label this ‘Kathy taking a leek’ but wasn’t sure she’d appreciate it! She is rinsing off a freshly dug up bunch of leeks in the stream.
Then we began venturing into different terrain, coming across an old rusted very large (possibly sluice?) pipe. Trying to get bearings we saw a road. Remembered one from hike two weeks ago and a couple roads from past visits. These are really just old overgrown logging roads and though I was reasonably certain the directions of roads I’d been on previously – was not certain which we were on as we had approached from a different direction. We went back to the stream for awhile then back up to the road which seemed to take a lot longer than it should. We eventually came across an old crashed snowmobile and I knew then this was an unfamiliar road and therefore did not know what direction we should go.
Short-eared Owls
Short-eared Owl
By: Pat Coate
I squeezed in an after work trip to Church Road in Hamlin to see the short-eared owls on a recent business trip to Rochester. There were 5-6 owls variously perched in trees, hunting low over the field, pouncing on prey or landing in the field. Thanks to Jim A. for great directions and the genesee list for posting about the owls.
Finally some cross-country skiing
Cross-country ski trail in Allegany State Park
By: Pat Coate
Got out for my first and probably only cross-country skiing jaunt for the winter this past weekend at Allegany State Park. It has truly been the most mild winter (by far) that I can remember since we have lived in this area. It was a beautiful, sunny 20+ degree day. We had gotten 3-4 inches of snow the evening before but, with no base and the Sunday forecast in the 50s, the trails were not groomed. It was a peaceful, relaxing trip with an extended stop to enjoy the overlook along the Christian Hollow Trail.
Ruddy Turnstone
Ruddy Turnstone (winter plumage)
By: Pat Coate
While cleaning up some of my files I came across these photos of a Ruddy Turnstone I’d taken in the fall in Myrtle Beach. Though there are occasional sightings of these birds in Western New York during migration, I had never seen one so it was exciting to find this one along the beach.
These shorebirds get their name because they will often search for food by turning over stones to see what delectables may be hiding underneath. They are evidently not picky eaters and will eat pretty much whatever they find under the stones, or under seaweed, sticks and other debris.
Long-tailed Ducks
Long-tailed Duck (Male, non-breeding plumage)
By: Pat Coate
On a recent trip up to Rochester I made a quick stop at the Charlotte Pier where the Genesee River empties into Lake Ontario. There were two species that I hoped to find – the Snowy Owl that had been reported in the area and a Long-tailed Duck. Didn’t find the Snowy but there were quite a few Long-tailed Ducks – a life bird for me.
They are handsome birds that breed in the Arctic and winter along the northern coasts and on the Great Lakes. A diving duck, this bird spends a lot of time under water and can dive quite deeply, up to 200 feet. The Long-tailed Duck was previously known as Oldsquaw.
Snow Buntings
Flock of Snow Buntings
By: Pat Coate
Our local bird club had a field trip this past weekend literally heading out to the freshly manured fields in the northeast part of the county hoping to see the snow buntings, horned lark and Lapland longspurs that would be drawn to the seeds in the manure. We got two out of three – missing out on the longspur. We had a good sized flock of snow buntings (in the 100s) swirling about, and a dozen or so horned larks. Also a bit of excitement as some in the group spotted a Lesser Black-backed Gull mixed in with Herring and Ring-billed gulls – the Lesser Black-backed was the first recorded sighting of this bird for our county. Another highlight was a Red-tailed hawk abandoning its prey mid-flight as it was mobbed by crows.
Many thanks to Bert for leading this trip – it was a fun day of birding with a nice group of folks (and as a bonus I learned how to play zip and zap). Full species list follows.
Appalachian Trail – Mary’s Rock in Virgina
View from Mary’s Rock, Appalachian Trail
By: Pat Coate
I have a dream to one day (soon) hike the Appalachian Trail (Tom A. are you in?). While visiting my father-in-law in Virginia, my husband and I got a small taste of it by hiking up to Mary’s Rock in Shenandoah National Park. It was beautiful and I do hope to get back sometime. In any case, my journey has started- 4 miles down, only 2,196 or so more to go!
This stretch of the trail must be very well traveled as there was lots of erosion control along it, and just along that short stretch we ran into six other hikers. Only wildlife activity we saw were two soaring turkey vultures.
The Joys of Bird Photography
Tree Sparrow in Flight
By: Pat Coate
One of the many joys of bird photography is the short window of opportunity you often have to get that ‘perfect’ shot. It’s sort of like the unpredictability of trying to get a squirming child to cooperate for the family Christmas shot – but with the added challenge of shooting outdoors and minus the ability to use bribes or silly faces to keep your subject still.
Sometimes you get lucky and happen to capture a decent picture of a bird in flight, like the tree sparrow above. And sometimes you don’t always get a bird’s better side, like the chickadee in the following picture.
Waterfowl and Eagle Count
Bald Eagle along Allegheny River
By: Pat Coate
January 15th was the annual waterfowl and eagle count for the Buffalo Ornithological Society. Tim, Bert and I covered a section of Cattaraugus County in Western New York. Despite the warmer than average winter, that day started off at -10 degrees but we forged on, adding further evidence to my husband’s theory that birders are an odd lot.
Waterfowl counts were down significantly from prior years. The prevailing thought was that a lot of water to the north (like Lake Erie) was not yet frozen over, so the birds had not yet moved down our way to open water along the Allegheny River. We saw only five species of waterfowl, two bald eagles, and a total of just over 20 species on the day. It was still a fun day and Tim and Bert are excellent birders to spend time with. Full species list follows.
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Bear Tracks in the Snow
Bear Tracks, Allegany State Park (NY) January 2012
By: Pat Coate
While hiking in Allegany State Park in early January we came across some bear tracks. In most winters the black bears of the park would be hibernating in their dens during January. But during warm spells like we had been experiencing, the bears may leave their dens to forage for food.
Hibernation* is pretty amazing – the bears don’t eat, drink or excrete. Their body produces food and water from breaking down fat. They don’t lose muscle mass. Their heart rate drops, often to less than 10 beats per minute, and their body temperature stays high due to their thick fur and high level of body fat. If their body temperature does start to fall, a shiver reflex is triggered which warms them up. Bears don’t hibernate to escape the cold, but as a method to cope with food scarcity.
*Technically bears don’t hibernate, it is more like an extended deep sleep from which they may occasionally awaken as evidenced by these tracks.
Mon@rch's Nature Blog 