Downtown birds
Can you identify this “urban” bird? It was blasting its song over the main site for the New York State “Special Concern” Eastern Spiny Softshell Turtles in downtown Jamestown this past Sunday! It is not obscured and it is close but this is a difficult angle. Yep, that is actually a Tennessee Warbler (Oreothlypis peregrina)! There was a surprising bunch of migrants at the site and I noted the following: Eastern Kingbird 1 Warbling Vireo 2 Red-eyed Vireo 1 Swainson’s Thrush 1 Gray Catbird 2 Tennessee Warbler 3 Nashville Warbler 4 Common Yellowthroat 1 Cape May...
Read MoreHooded Mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus) by Scott Kruitbosch
There are still plenty of ducks around that are nearly all paired up. These Hooded Mergansers were in downtown Jamestown on the Chadakoin River. She certainly blends in!
Read MoreDowntown Snowy Owl
On this past Sunday night, February 9, I was fortunate enough to spot a Snowy Owl flying in downtown Jamestown. At around 10:23PM I observed an individual about 200 feet off the ground heading slowly but surely to the west. I watched the bird drift out of sight without any binoculars or my camera, neither of which would have helped much anyway. In thinking about the sighting afterwards it seemed to me that the bird was following the Chadakoin River. Snowy Owls are both diurnal and nocturnal and over the years I have seen individuals following different patterns at different times at...
Read MoreHermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus) by Scott Kruitbosch
This Hermit Thrush (Catharus guttatus) was at the Times Beach Nature Preserve in Buffalo on October 13. The reddish tail of the common fall migrant always contrasts with their duller body. This routine sighting will nevertheless be recorded for all-time having been entered into eBird and counted on the Buffalo Ornithological Society’s October Count in Section 11. What conservation monitoring and citizen science programs do you participate in?
Read MoreLeopard Slug (Limax maximus) by Twan Leenders
This is a Leopard Slug (Limax maximus), another backyard visitor that you may have to look carefully to find but certainly stands out. This one is a regular visitor to a compost pile in Jamestown. You may also find them in a garden or elsewhere in your yard. They are actually an introduced species that is native to Europe. Stunning!
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