Had four beautiful Evening Grosbeaks (two male and two female) stop by my feeders in the Bellevue section of Schenectady yesterday, near Hillhurst Park.   Despite spreading sunflower seed everywhere, they moved on after half an hour.  Also had Carolina Wren, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker at the feeders at the same time! … among the usual suspects.

I did my annual Veteran’s Day Tomhannock Reservoir circumnavigation doing the customary counter-clockwise route with two traditional departures from the reservoir for the sole purpose of padding our list.  I was accompanied by Jackie Bogardus, as I have been for the last several years.  We found 46 species, with nothing earth-shaking.  The warmth was really different for this year, with high 60s to low 70s.  Unfortunately, it started raining at about 11:30 and didn’t really let up, so we finished the route but didn’t get out at a number of the usual spots.

Duck diversity was lower than usual, possibly due to the stretch of warm weather we’ve had recently.  We missed Ring-necked Duck and Tree Swallow at the north end where we’ve gotten both most often in recent years.  We also missed Belted Kingfisher, Pileated Woodpecker, and Northern Flicker.  Our biggest miss, however, was American Tree Sparrow, which was missed for the first time in the 23 years I have results for, going back to 1997.  I attribute this to the rain.

We got a couple good birds, though.  There was a late Greater Yellowlegs at Otter Creek (along with oodles of Green-winged Teal!), and we had a flyover Peregrine Falcon.  Most unexpected, we had an Eastern Screech-Owl responding to a recording from the exact same tree as last year.  I assume it’s the same bird.

We had no blackbirds, warblers, kinglets, or wrens.  We did have a group of 4 Pine Siskins, for our only “winter finch.”  46 species is three species below our ten-year average.

We added a species to the composite – Turkey Vulture – bringing the cumulative total to 108 species.  Until next year…

Larry Alden