My life is about living with nature – here you can live it with me!

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Common Loons


I counted 27 Common Loons on Red House Lake this morning! One flock had 22 birds in it the other 5 were scattered birds around the lake (prob ones that have been here the past few days).

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Bird Bath?

Bird bath
Wash Cycle1

By: Pat Coate

Note: I started posting weekly to Tom’s blog about 1 year ago – this was my first. I decided to celebrate my ‘anniversary’ by taking the week off and re-publishing this first posting – still one of my favorites.

I recently got to spend some time in Allegany State Park and had the pleasure of watching some fun behavior within a flock of about 25 Canada geese. It was a Sunday and it appeared to be bathing day. First, the geese would flip themselves upside down.
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Canada Goose Nesting in an Osprey Platform


I was out earlier this week in Allegany State Park checking out the Osprey Platforms and happen to find this strange bird up in the nest. Could it seriously be a Canada Goose up there?? Next day returned and sure enough this Canada Goose is up in this Osprey Platform “NESTING”!! I am now starting to worry about these little guys jumping down . . . . ! Just never know what you might find in Allegany!!

Canada Goose in an Osprey Platform

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Bloodroot


Good day when you find wild bloodroot.

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Northern Saw-whet in Owl Woods

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Northern Saw-Whet (adult)

By: Pat Coate

Due to an early morning flight for a business trip on Monday, I stayed in Rochester Sunday night. I decided to head up early and spend the day visiting some of the Rochester-area birding sites including Owl Woods and the Braddock Bay Hawk Watch. I am extremely thankful to Jim Adams (http://ayearinoatka.blogspot.com/) for meeting me, providing such a wonderful tour of the area and for sharing his experience and knowledge (and scope).

We found this Northern Saw-whet Owl, nestled in an evergreen tree, resting up to finish its northern migration. These owls are quite small – only about 7-8 inches tall and weigh less than ½ pound .

Please note that the pictures were taken with a telephoto lens and we kept our observation time brief.
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Action Last Night


Lots of action happening in the vernal pools last night!

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Bonapart’s Gull’s arrived


Had 15ish Bonapart’s Gulls over on Red House Lake this morning! Mid April is typically when they arrive! Also yesterday had some Tree Swallows flying out on the lake.

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Mourning Cloak


My first of the year! Whoot! Saw on Sunday near the house!

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Another Osprey Encounter

from Pat Coate –

My sister, Lynda, lives near the Rappahannock River in Virginia and emailed me this recent encounter she had with an osprey (and company). What an interesting encounter with nature to have witnessed!

“The other day the girls and I were walking back home from across the street and we hear a noise and looked up and swooping down over the roofs of the townhouses right next to us comes an osprey with a big fish in his talons, being chased by an eagle, being chased by a crow!! It was so incredible! They were maybe 25 feet over our heads right in front of us!

The osprey gave up just then and dropped the fish with a splat onto the parking lot. It slid under a car. The eagle and osprey both kind of looped up and looked for it but couldn’t see it and flew away. I ran and grabbed the fish out from under the car and put it in the park across the street but they didn’t come back. It would have been cool to just chuck it up there to the eagle! : ) He started to move like he was going to dive for it after the osprey dropped it but he was just too low already to make a dive for it. We were stunned! You probably would have gotten awesome pictures of it! I’ve got an incredible one in my head though!

So there’s lots of fun bird watching around here right now. April is always my favorite month for the eagles around here. They are always chasing each other around in the sky and right now the river literally looks like it’s boiling with the shad running!”

Osprey Back and Building

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Osprey adding to nest

By: Pat Coate

I am so glad I decided to set aside weekend chores for a bit and squeeze in some birding because I had a wonderful encounter with this osprey. Though I am sure it was aware of my presence, it did not seem to mind me watching it. I spent about 30 minutes watching and got to see it repeatedly snap off branches and carry them to this nest. There was only one osprey present, so I presume this is the male prettying up the place for the female’s arrival.

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