Cowanesque Lake Birding

Yesterday, Terry and I joined Gary and Martha over at Cowanesque Lake on the PA-NY border for a morning of birding. The weather was cooperative and even quite nice on the occasions when the sun broke through the clouds.

We walked a portion of the trail on the northwest shoreline, west of the campground facility, and then drove around to the different recreation areas on the south side of the lake.

The lake is man made and is under the watch/care of US Corps of Engineers. Since its main purpose is flood control, the lake itself is not very deep. There are shallows on the west end where you're furthest from the dam that are probably only a few feet deep and many small sedimentary bars and islands that are probably submerged during higher waters. The east end, which is immediately behind the dam, is much deeper and the south side of the lake has two boat launches.

We spotted some species that I got pretty excited about. There were a pair of ospreys sitting upon a nest atop a big old snag (dead tree) that had been flooded with the creation of the lake. Even though the osprey is rather common in this area what with Cowanesque, Hammond and Tioga Lakes (all Corps of Engineers' projects) I still enjoy watching them fish. Several double-crested cormorants were seen flying overhead as well as sunning themselves upon a log over hanging the water. A common loon, which shouldn't be that common in waters that will be far from the isolated, pristine lakes of the wilderness you think they'd prefer, swam and posed for us as we set up our spotting scopes.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable morning, even though the attendance was a bit low. Anyway, here's the list of birds we say as compiled by Gary:
Location: Cowanesque Lake
Observation date: 4/19/07
Notes: Temperature 40-50 degs, partly cloudy. Occasional light breeze.
Number of species: 29

Canada Goose 12
Mallard 7
Lesser Scaup 10
Common Merganser 1
Common Loon 1
Double-crested Cormorant 5
Osprey 3
Bald Eagle 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
Killdeer 3
Lesser Yellowlegs 2
Ring-billed Gull 6
Caspian Tern 1
Mourning Dove 1
Belted Kingfisher 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 4
Pileated Woodpecker 1
Eastern Phoebe 1
American Crow 1
Tree Swallow X
Barn Swallow 1
Black-capped Chickadee 2
Carolina Wren 1
American Robin 4
Song Sparrow 3
Northern Cardinal 1
Red-winged Blackbird 6
Common Grackle 9