Finger Lake'n Good

On Thursday, April 24, for the third time in twelve months, I found myself pulling into the town of Skaneateles ("long lake" in Iroquois), New York, hoping that the public restrooms were open, and that the lake that shared the town's name would have a wide variety of ducks on it. You know, just like your average tourist does.

Well, one out of two ain't bad. The restrooms were open. Such was the inauspicious beginning of our third Finger Lakes birding adventure.

We - Carol Decker, director of the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary, our thirteen program attendees joining us from Mendon to Sandwich, and me - headed west for Cayuga Lake, which we would circumnavigate over the next twenty-four hours in search of birds, mammals, amphibians, wildlflowers, and more. We started in the town of Cayuga, at the head of the lake, finding our first of many ospreys, a northern rough-winged swallow and several carpenter bees, one of which is pictured at left with his shadow.

Onward through rolling farmland we drove, pausing at promising, yet strangely disappointing spots along the way. We had calls and songs, but mostly distant. We couldn't even get the squirrels right. At Long Point State Park, we found a gray squirrel that was more red than gray. Still, nobody complained. By the end of the day, as we pulled into Ithaca and the parking lot of our hotel, we'd scored 47 species of birds, mourning cloak butterflies, woodchucks, a brown snake, and more.

We started fresh on day two, waking up for some 5 a.m. owling that went absolutely nowhere, except to the tree branch hangout of a singing purple finch. We regrouped and headed for one of our target destinations, Sapsucker Woods and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (I thought I heard a fish crow in the parking lot of the hotel as we left, but then realized that, according to Sibley, that would be too far west for their range). Each trip I've taken to Sapsucker has produced sapsuckers. Finally, the birding gods were with us. Our first sapsucker (of about ten), desperately wanted to be heard; we found it drumming on a metal sign on the street. On the way around the Wilson Trail, we spotted a singing swamp sparrow, a nest-building house wren, and a pair of bluebirds performing the same task. Later, from the Woodleton Boardwalk, we heard a pair of northern waterthrushes singing their spring song.

We poked through the Lab, spending some money at the gift shop, and then headed for the western shore of Cayuga Lake. After a quick visit to Buttermilk Falls State Park, we walked the gorge into Taughannock Falls, where ravens and northern rough-winged swallows took the day. A single black-throated green warbler sang on the south slope and white and red trilliums dotted the landscape. Our day ended with a teaser run-through of the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge.

Day three began in the town of Victor, with a short drive through Rochester on the way to Braddock Bay. We lingered at the hawkwatch there, amazed at the building kettles in the distance, and awed by the beauty of broad-winged hawks soaring closely overhead. Two American pipits flew overhead, a bald eagle perched in a tree in the distance, an orchard oriole flashed in and out of view, and four caspian terns dove into the bay. Yellow warblers sang heartily and a gray catbird made a very, very brief appearance.

Southward we pushed through a powerful thunderstorm, to the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge, where the site's fiftieth anniversary celebration was taking place. There we met a man who brought up the name of Dutch Barney, the gentleman who provided Mass Audubon with one of its little known gems, the High Ledges Wildlife Sanctuary. He had brought Dutch and his wife in for their last visit to their beloved site before they passed, and wanted to know how it was being kept. And did I mention there was cake?

On a pretty good sugar rush, we headed toward the Cayuga Overlook, where we sighted pied-billed grebes, an ancient bald eagle's nest, white-crowned sparrows, northern pintails, and more. Nesting black terns were due any day, and there had even been a brief sighting that morning. A short walk down the Onondaga Trail brought out calling gray tree frogs, more yellow warblers, a brown creeper and a surprise blue-headed vireo. Two kestrels emerged from a box and put on a show for us on the way out. Day total? Seventy-two species, plus twenty-two woodchucks on the road from Iroquois to Victor, just over a one-a-minute pace.

Day three began back in Victor again, with a quick run west to Mendon Ponds Park to find our only cedar waxwings of the trip. At 9:45, I joined Ray Brown on his Talkin' Birds radio program. (Don't tell him, but it was at a rest stop and not Montezuma as I said on the air; we were less than four minutes away when the cry for a bathroom break arose, and I had to oblige our guests). At Montezuma, the purple martin colony had returned, northern shovelers, blue-winged teals, American coots, redheads and canvasbacks fed in the main pool. Carp tried crazily to force their way in from the nearby feeder canal, and from the overlook at the Tschache Pool we spied seven bald eagles, approximately twenty-five great blue herons (nesting on the ground), another pied-billed grebe, two tundra swans and more. As we watched, a fish crow called, circled the tower, and flew away. We posed for a group picture, and we drove through the Mucklands for home.

After four days, we could claim 103 species of birds, snapping turtles, deer, muskrats, spring azure butterflies, trout lilies, Carolina spring beauties, garter snakes, marsh marigolds, and even a bullfrog. The skies darkened and the temperature dropped as we drove east, from 75 to 45. There were plenty of jokes about turning around and heading back, but that day will come. I know that next year at this time, I'll probably be making this report again.