The day dawned bright and cold, and rafts of ducks awaited us offshore. My fave of the day was the persistent flocks of bufflehead that kept flying by and performing their courting rituals for us (click on the picture for a video of buffleheads jockeying to court). Despite the cold, everyone appeared to enjoy the morning (thanks for dressing appropriately!) and we were greeted with a fine selection of waterfowl and landbirds.

Special thanks to Nathan, our new resident eBird expert, for entering Thurdsay’s data…As always, if you notice that something is missing from the list leave it in the comments and we can add it into eBird:

Location: Stewart Park, Ithaca
Observation date: 4/3/08
Notes: We did not carry a checklist/tally sheet, so these numbers represent my best approximations. There may have been additional species of waterfowl in the large raft offshore.<br>Cheers<br>Nathan Williams
Number of species: 31

Canada Goose 15
Wood Duck 1
Mallard 7
Greater Scaup 1 There were several Greater Scaup in a raft. Number not recorded.
Lesser Scaup 1 There were several Lesser Scaup in a raft. Number not recorded.
Bufflehead 80 Most of the Bufflehead (~70) were in a large raft.
Hooded Merganser 5
Common Merganser 12
Turkey Vulture 2
Osprey 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Killdeer 2
Bonaparte’s Gull 2
Ring-billed Gull 14
Rock Pigeon 3
Mourning Dove 3
Downy Woodpecker 1
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 1 Audio only
Pileated Woodpecker 1 Audio only
American Crow 3
Black-capped Chickadee 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
Carolina Wren 1 Audio only
American Robin 25 Stewart’s Park was loaded with American Robins calling all morning. This number could be much higher.
Northern Mockingbird 1
European Starling 40 One large flock of ~30, and smaller groups of 3-5 in trees.
Red-winged Blackbird 1
Common Grackle 6
American Goldfinch 5
House Sparrow 3