New York Day 3

OK, back to New York!

Our second day in New York would have been notable no matter what we did during the day because we had pie for breakfast. Yum.

Thankfully, we went out and filled it with other activities, so there will be more to read. If that really is a reason to give thanks.

Our main destination that Monday was Letchworth State Park - renowned both as the Grand Canyon of the East and as home to one of the most diverse assemblages of breeding wood warbler species in North America.

We started the day in the southeastern portion of the park -- and old Civil War regimental parade grounds. This spot is the best area for warblers in the park, and we were not disappointed -- only a minutes after arriving one of us spotted a male Blackburnian Warbler foraging in some tall trees directly above us. Although our brief looks were almost neck-breaking, we were still able to appreciate its breathtaking flame-colored neck.

Not long afterward, we were distracted by a very uncooperative Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. These proved to be quite common in the area, but we spent a long time trying to get a clear look at this secretive individual as it hid in the highest boughs of a cluster of pines. Giving up before we were satisfied due to the restraints of time, we took a short walk around the Parade Grounds themselves to see if we could find any warblers. Nothing much doing there, but soon afterward we found a cooperative male Hooded Warbler. These were pretty common in some of the woods in that area.

After a short walk into the woods, we headed off to the Mary Jemison Trail, which was also supposed to be a fair area for warblers. As we pulled into the parking lot, we were talking about a singing bird, when Becca mentioned casually, "It's that Scarlet Tanager." There it was! That was the bird I probably most wanted to see in New York, and it completely fulfilled all of my expectations. After a brief lunch, we headed off on the trail.

Hiking in New York was a lot of fun. We enjoyed the forest, the dark earth of the trail, trickling streams, and, of course, birds. One highlight was a pair of Winter Wrens that Becca found. We were even privileged to hear them sing! The song was beautiful; it tinkled on for ages, with a more musical and beautiful quality to it than the western Winter Wrens we heard singing in Oregon last year. We also found a pair of Pine Warblers a little bit later in a plantation further down the trail, which were new to us. We didn't see them extremely well, as they were high above us, so that's a bird we'll hopefully be able to see again some day.

After returning to the car, we headed off to check out the park proper. It was spectacular, with yawning vistas and thundering waterfalls. Here's what it looked like:

Upper Falls

Middle Falls

Libby and Middle Falls



Upper and Middle Falls



Lower Falls

You can see why this is worth visiting. It was beautiful.

One last highlight from Letchworth proper was stopping at a Wolf Creek parking lot and finding a fledgling Eastern Screech-Owl perched on a tree trunk nearly on the ground. We've never seen anything like that! The poor little bird was being mobbed by a pair of persistent Robins, and it gazed sleepily up at them with little jerks when they'd swoop in over its head. We were concerned that it might get knocked off into the water below it (doubly so since the creek was rushing directly off a waterfall), but our worries evaporated when it took off and landed in another tree on the far bank a few moments later. Thanks goes to the stranger who found it and tipped us off to its presence.

By the time we'd done all that, it was getting pretty late in the day, so we headed back to Rochester. Of course, we found a way to squeeze a little more birding in, too, via Nations Road. This agricultural area hosts breeding populations of a lot of grassland birds, including Henslow's Sparrows, Grasshopper's Sparrows, and Vesper's Sparrows. We didn't find any of those, though we did see more Bobolinks, Meadowlarks and Savannah Sparrows. The real highlight was when we stopped by a private wood by the road, where we found a Brown Thrasher, our first ever Eastern Towhee, and Bill and Becca's first ever Yellow-billed Cuckoo. The Cuckoo was especially exciting.

And that's about it - I just need to get this posted! There are more pictures of Letchworth and some pictures of birds on our Flickr for that day: New York Day 3.