Date: 5/21/26 6:50 pm From: Shelley Page <shelleypage.imagine...> Subject: [cayugabirds-l] May 21 Thursday Birding Meetup Recap and Next Week Plans
Always nice to bird in a new place and be delighted! Our Thursday birding meetup today at the beautiful Swan property on Mt. Pleasant Road was a new venue for us, at the invitation of Lynne Hewitt <https://www.facebook.com/groups/423723264332161/user/629387812/?__cft__[0]=AZb3rWyLqXdHWXSkGQywIQU1OsbglDpAJhbHhSNwjxUKYjaA-aFzfHC8jf15KcLO_y4AIGpRbWh7XNUnN8SUd8VoyKdptt1f-tmvXgZSmOihZScGfxM9fbV29T5uxXk8FlBMGPSE4ZJKeAzVGB0-X5Nb&__tn__=-]K-R> who lives next door. Twenty-one of us gathered to check it out and we were not disappointed! Our initial foray around the pond found us excited by blackpoll and Tennessee warblers as well as a close look at two cedar waxwings picking bugs among apple blossoms. A few bobolinks graced the meadow. And the woods surprised us with sapsuckers and a sapsucker nest in a slender aspen where we could hear the nestlings! Seven different warblers were on view with the usually elusive ovenbird as the star of the show. We got excellent looks as an ovenbird walked along at pretty close range so that the iconic orange topknot was very visible. We saw 33 species in total (thanks for our ebird, Diane Morton) including the resident woodland birds and some recent arrivals like great crested flycatcher and wood thrush. The wildflowers were a treat as well with mounds of wild geraniums, scatterings of Canada mayflowers and mayapples, and large patches of wood betony (aka Canadian lousewort--a good reminder that botany prefers the Latin name, Pedicularis canadensis) among ferns and fungus. All in all, a lovely morning of birding and botany! Thanks, Lynne Hewitt <https://www.facebook.com/groups/423723264332161/user/629387812/?__cft__[0]=AZb3rWyLqXdHWXSkGQywIQU1OsbglDpAJhbHhSNwjxUKYjaA-aFzfHC8jf15KcLO_y4AIGpRbWh7XNUnN8SUd8VoyKdptt1f-tmvXgZSmOihZScGfxM9fbV29T5uxXk8FlBMGPSE4ZJKeAzVGB0-X5Nb&__tn__=-]K-R>! Several of us gathered afterward at East Hill College Town Bagels for conversation and breakfast. Want to join us next week? Gather with us at 7:00 am at the Sims-Jennings Preserve at Cayuga Cliffs in Lansing. We'll be on the look out for grassland birds in the meadows and warblers in the woods and along the edges. Directions from Ithaca: Take Route 34 (East Shore Dr) north. Turn left on 34B and travel 3.9 miles to the parking lot on your left. Shelley Page *she/they/ki*
313-550-1437 261 Coddington Road Apt. B Ithaca, New York 14850
https://uuma.zoom.us/j/2065380867 "All that you touch you Change. All that you Change changes you. The only lasting truth is Change. God is Change." Octavia Butler, The Parable of the Sower
