Forest

On Wednesday May 20th I went birding at the Lake Alice Wildlife Management Area located between Altona and Chazy New York. The weather was beautiful when I arrived at 7:30 with clear skies and bright sun. The temperature started off at 52 degrees Fahrenheit but by the afternoon had climbed up into the upper 60's. The Lake Alice wildlife area is situated round Lake Alice a small lake bordered by marshes to the south and a deciduous forest to the east. Immediately north of the lake a small patchwork of fields are maintained but beyond those fields a mixed deciduous forest is the dominant habitat type. To the west of the lake is a mixture of properties, fields and small forest stands. Through the deciduous forest to the Northeast of the lake a cross country ski trail cut through the forest offering a useful trail to follow.

In and around lake Alice I saw some a high number of Yellow Warblers who were both very vocal and active. I was surprised by the abundance of Yellow Warblers. While I have come across them before I saw a much greater number of them today than on previous outings. Also in and around the lake were Red-winged Blackbirds, a Belted Kingfisher, Canada Geese, Baltimore Oriole and what I believe was an Eastern Kingbird. The mixture of habitat around the lake appeared to be influenced by the mowing of several small fields which provided a decent amount of open cover north of the lake. The marshlands to the south of the lake were still very boggy and lacked a developed trail which somewhat precluded me from exploring in that direction.

Moving into the deciduous forest I had a fair bit of difficulty. I'm still working on the vocalizations so I struggled a bit as the visibility was significantly reduced in the forested habitat. I think that I heard an American Redstart and an Ovenbird but I was not confident enough to list them. In terms of the Scarlet Tanager it could have been present and I simply did not hear or see one. I was in a fairly large block of forested habitat however I was located on the edge of the block and due to the boggy nature of the forest was somewhat limited to staying close to the trail. So there is a possibility that there may have been Scarlet Tanagers present deeper in the forest. In terms of what I did see I was very happy with the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, the Red-eyed Vireo, the Least Flycatcher and the Wood Thrush. I'm pretty confident that I observed a Least Flycatcher though it was a new species for me so I wasn't 100 percent sure. However, the abundance of flying insects in particular the mosquitoes offered a wide array of food sources.

Posted on 20 de maio de 2020, 09:12 PM by tsshafer