Wide Open Lake Erie
Thanks to El Niño’s strong influence on the position of the Pacific jet stream, the start of the 2015-2016 winter started more green than white here in Western New York. With only short spurts of cold air, Lake Erie has been staying warm and fueling small snow storms as systems move through. As the storms pass, we have been keeping an eye out for bird movement, as it has been pretty quiet up to this point. A couple weeks ago, JCC/RTPI intern Alex Shipherd and I took a trip to various points along the Lake Erie Plain to scope out waterfowl and winter raptors. As you can see Lake Erie is still...
Read MoreSnowy Owl eBird Map 12-08-15
I heard that some people around these parts like Snowy Owls, huh? Where are the birds now? Well, here is where they were from October 1 through this morning on December 8 thanks to eBird, with all of the orange markers being sightings in the last 30 days. From glancing through individual sightings they seem to be hugging the coastlines so far from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, and while this is typical, it seems to be the case a little more than usual. Snowys are in the fields, farms and grasslands more to the west in other areas of the upper Midwest and Great Plains. I would imagine that...
Read MoreHummingbird Garden
This November has been a warm one until recently! As mentioned yesterday, the month is typically known for its avian rarities in the Northeast with southerly flow events followed by strong cold fronts, moving those that traveled up on those winds back down to coastal areas especially. Cave Swallows are a featured species in this phenomenon, with some more still being seen around the Great Lakes today and hundreds of others transported back to the New England coast to presumably move south again. Hummingbirds are also being seen more frequently in late autumn and early winter across the...
Read MoreCave Swallows
After an enthralling day with the biggest invasion of Franklin’s Gulls across the Northeast and Atlantic coast since at least 1998 (more on that in another entry later this weekend) our collective hopes were high for more sensational rare birds with them. This Friday, one of the most memorable birding days in years, had all available Connecticut birders mobilized along the coast, looking for life and state Franklin’s while trying to remember to watch for many other target species. One of these was the Cave Swallow, a classic November vagrant in the Northeast since the early...
Read MoreGarbage Mentality
It is one cup left on one rock in front of one ocean, and it certainly looks insignificant in this photo, but does the Atlantic really need one more piece of trash? If you are heading to the shore to fish, swim, build sandcastles, enjoy the wildlife, whatever your day may be, please do not leave anything behind. Every little bit does count. I am continually astounded at how many people trash their trash wherever they please around any open water as if the endless horizon will simply swallow it up, and I plan on making this more of a point going forward given all that we at RTPI do to help...
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