Recent notes about birds from Finger Lakes

After a long time, yesterday I chased a rare bird – a juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-heron at Taughanock State Park. The bird was simply hungry and ignored the birders. I don’t know the sex of the bird, but I am going to use the pronoun she/her. She caught a few crayfishes when I was there. It was fun to watch her plan for her moves. She sometimes would dip her beak in the water and wait and then nab the target. when she moved or put her beak in the water, it created circular waves. So I was wondering if those waves provide some information to crayfish that someone is watching it or after it. Also when she was looking for the prey, twice an Eastern Kingbird chased her around. At one time there were about 50 Turkey Vultures in the sky and few of them circled right over her head. She tilted her head to look at them. We were surprised that she took notice of them.

Here are some of her other pictures. It was pleasant to chat with some other fellow birders while watching her who had come from far away locations.

Closer to home, I have been having a property dispute with this little guy – House Wren. He finished his parenting duty at the house specifically built for him raising only one young, I don’t know why. Now he is ready to make a way for a second brood and attract a new/ or same female for nesting a second time. But the dispute is over where he wants his nest.

He wants his nest in my kitchen exhaust vent and I am telling him that it is my property. He comes inside the vent and chatters and I if I hear him from inside the kitchen, I take a spoon or equivalent and tap on the hood of my exhaust to claim that it is my property. Then I open door to get out and confront him. He is so mad he jumps up and down on the dead privet branch and chatters and yells. I tell him in plain English that the vent is my property. So every day we fight about it. Some times when the female is nearby she chuckles when we fight. We will have to see who will win. Luckily there are no lawyers involved.

Further away from home at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, I was lucky to meet another wren – a Marsh wren chattering and a bald Red-winged Blackbird from among the weeds.

Here I also came across, I think it is two families of Sandhill Cranes unless the chick grew quickly to the parents’ size in five days. As soon as I saw the family they ran to the cover and it was interesting to watch the juvenile run after the parents.

I am still sorting out sounds and pictures of my long 30 days trip to northern Midwest visiting North Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan for birds. I will post about it sometimes soon!