The Madison Street Impoundment

I was fortunate yesterday morning to get to go birding with Debbie and Harvey here in Hamilton. They showed me the best local birding site I’ve seen so far, a remnant marsh and impoundment barely 5 minutes from our place; Alison and I had glimpsed it from the road the other day, but it takes good local knowledge to figure out what’s accessible and what’s not around here!

The water levels were low in the scraped impoundment itself, a condition taken advantage of by 30-some Killdeer. They made themselves known, of course, even as we were just getting out of the car 1/4 mile away, and so did a lingering Greater Yellowlegs, which kleeped at us most of the morning; the four Wilson’s Snipe lurking on the grassy edges permitted a much closer approach. A pretty good shorebird constellation for late October in central New York; I wonder what the place is like during the peak of wader migration.

Ducks were few, but among the Mallards were a few Green-winged Teal and a pair of Wood Ducks. Canada Geese were moving around in impressive numbers, from ponds to green lawns and back; even in flight, the differences between the swan-necked and slope-headed introduced birds and the stockier, darker wild migrants are apparent.

Passerine birding was not as good as the waterbirds. A stop at the Madison Lane trail, however, produced a very sweet Eastern Phoebe, happily flycatching on what had turned out to be a beautiful Indian summer morning.