Not a single lifer lately, but some great birding has gone down. I made it out with my friends, Kevin Rybczynski and Rick Thomas yesterday. Our main mission was to get the Long-eared Owl at Oatka Creek park as a lifer for Rick, but it turned out we had enough time to scour the countryside between Rochester and Buffalo for Northern Shrike, Rough-legged Hawks, and others. We were able to locate the Long-eared Owl in its secondary roosting location and it provided quite amazing views for all of us, and possibly the best views ever as a life bird for Rick. Happy that we had completed the main mission, we hit the back roads looking for a few other things like Eurasian Collard-Dove and the aforementioned raptors/murderous passerines. We spotted many interesting things like Eastern Bluebirds, Horned Larks, two Snowy Owls, and tons of Red-tailed Hawks, but were skunked on all of our target species. The act of birding never fails to be fruitful though, and we were all pleased to come across this fantastic specimen:
The Merlin is a medium sized falcon of maximum awesome. These blazing bullets of death can eat up to 900 song birds a year. Here in Buffalo NY and on the east coast in general we mostly get the Taiga race. This male shows off the beautiful coloration they get the "blue jacket" nickname for. The west coast gets the Pacific (black) race, and middle America gets the Prairie Merlin, who is the palest in overall coloration. In my quest to sex and id the race of our find, I noted an interesting nuance in the sexual dimorphism of the Taiga race. The male Taiga Merlin actually has a distinct black line in his lores, whereas the female has none. This could prove to be a handy tool in discerning male from female Merlin in the field. You can clearly see the black line just under the nostril that connects to the eye in the lores area. Scouring tons of field guides and pictures on the net, it is clear that female Taiga Merlin only has a blank lores area.
The Northern Shrike has continued to elude me despite going on a couple hour mission with my friend Sue Barth the other day, and looking again yesterday with boys. Luckily Sue and I were able to round out our day watching at least 7 Short-eared Owls barking and jousting over a large field with the added bonus of an adult male Northern Harrier. While I do see tons of Northern Harriers, I usually only see females and juveniles, so witnessing a Gray Ghost is always a pleasure. The day was heavy overcast and the birds came out late so I wasn't afforded any pictures, but I managed a few others over the last couple days.
The Northern Shrike has continued to elude me despite going on a couple hour mission with my friend Sue Barth the other day, and looking again yesterday with boys. Luckily Sue and I were able to round out our day watching at least 7 Short-eared Owls barking and jousting over a large field with the added bonus of an adult male Northern Harrier. While I do see tons of Northern Harriers, I usually only see females and juveniles, so witnessing a Gray Ghost is always a pleasure. The day was heavy overcast and the birds came out late so I wasn't afforded any pictures, but I managed a few others over the last couple days.