January Great Egret
This is your typical January Great Egret (Ardea alba) in New England…right…wait, what? As we plan and prepare for the fifth season of the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds, part of our year-round effort is NOT finding these long-legged waders during the avian wintering season in Connecticut. I photographed this bird yesterday, and today the temperature climbed to 60 with severe thunderstorms in the area. Thanks again, El Niño, and you as well, climate change. We will have a chilly week in the Northeast, and the Lake Erie snow machine will turn on dumping inches or maybe...
Read MoreAmerican Coots
A species such as these American Coot (Fulica americana) entered January finally having to find some open water as the freezing line has penetrated regions like Chautauqua County, quickly locking up the open water of small ponds and waterways. While Lake Erie can still provide a comfortable spot for many waterfowl this winter others will migrate south to the Atlantic Coast and warmer shoreline quarters. These American Coots are actually in the rail family and more closely related to Sandhill Cranes than their duck friends, and if you have ever seen their legs and feet out of the water then...
Read MoreWide 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 MoreLake Effect Snow Showers
What do you get when Lake Erie’s waters are warm, cold air is pushing across the lake, and there is a change in elevation? Lake effect snow! With big, fluffy flakes coming down, the ground and surrounding trees are quickly getting coated. While some love winter and other dread it, can’t we all agree that it makes everything look pretty?
Read MoreFoliage Flight
Goodbye to the fall foliage, and goodbye to those dots – they are Turkey Vultures heading to the south for the winter. Some will try to hang on in the Chautauqua-Allegheny region, but once the snow starts coming and life goes into hiding it becomes very difficult for these scavengers to find food, and the competition skyrockets. We will see them drifting up along Lake Erie again next spring.
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