Birding in the Montezuma Wildlife Refuge

We had been hoping to take a guided birding tour of the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge with my high school friend Brett Ewald, the owner/operator of Lakeshore Nature Tours, but unfortunately Brett had to cancel the trip. Undeterred, Dawn and I decided to throw caution (and professional guide services) to the wind and we struck out on our own for a few hours. Montezuma has a terrific Wildlife drive, a 4 mile (6km) long unpaved roadway that winds through the refuge's wetland, providing the opportunity for some excellent views of dozens of bird species and other wildlife from the comfort and convenience of your automobile.

Our adventure began almost as soon as we left the Visitor Center, with this striking scene of a Green Heron (Butorides virescens) sharing its perch with a female Mallard duck (Anas Platyrhynchos):


Others were swimming and feeding in the algae-rich water:


I think most of these are Mallards, but I'm no good with waterfowl. The bird at the right of the picture is a mystery to me. Can anyone help identify it?

Near the roadside we found this flower. I'm no better with plant ID than waterfowl, so I don't know what it is, but I liked the colors and the composition, so I took a picture:


We went to Montezuma for the birds, but the area is rich in wildlife of all kinds. Here's a furtive looking Coyote (Canis latrans) who was hunting for lunch:


Here's a nice close view of a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias), one of many that we saw on our driving tour:


Sometimes the best experiences of a journey occur early on. We were scanning the wetlands on both sides of the road when a great dark shape came out of the trees to our right, moving fast. It passed over the roadway and skimmed the marshes on the left side of the car:


An immature Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) was on the hunt! It swooped up, spun in a tight turn, and dove:


It actually seemed to land on the water for a half second, but then it sprung into the air again, its talons bereft of its aquatic prey:


The eagle headed back the way it came, moving much faster than I'd have thought possible for such a large bird. These two shots were taken 1/2 second apart, yet in that short space, the bird has already flapped its long, broad wings:


What a magnificent sight! We tried to track the eagle as it headed for the trees, several hundred meters away, but the eagle disappeared in the dense green foliage, so we turned our attention back to the roadway. There are several locations along the wildlife drive at which you can pull off the road and exit your vehicle for observing at your leisure. The first of these is the Spillway stop, and it was here that we found a number of noteworthy sights. Here's procession of adult and immature Mute Swans (Cygnus olor) far out in the marsh:


A bit closer to our vantage, this Green-winged Teal (Anas crecca) enjoyed some brief calisthenics:


Another of the ubiquitous Great Blue Herons flew across our field of view and landed on a muskrat house:


There's a relatively new walking trail a bit further along the wildlife drive, and we decided to explore it. The trail parallels an oxbow in one of the refuge's many waterways. We saw a few birds, mostly Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor), but the highlight of the walk was the three Belted Kingfishers (Ceryle alcyon) who made kinetic flights over the water. They were skittish in the extreme, and we heard their dry rattling call long before we saw them. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to capture a clear picture of any of them, though we had excellent views of a couple of them through our binoculars.

Back at the car, we rounded a bend at the north side end of the wildlife drive and set off for the Benning Marsh observation area. There, we found a great number of gulls and Caspian Terns (Sterna caspia) lounging in the shallow water. They put to flight though, when a juvenile Bald Eagle appeared overhead:


Our final stop was at the North Spring Pool, where we had heard we might see some Peregrines. We didn't find any falcons, but we were treated instead to a pair of Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) perched in a snag with a good view of the nearby the New York State Thruway:


We think the juvenile on the left was a male, based on its slightly smaller size in comparison to the adult on the right. Sensing an opportunity, I pulled out my scope and after a brief viewing session, connected my digiscoping adapter. The results weren't quite perfect, but rewarding for me nonetheless, since I'd never had such a close view of an Osprey before:


The fledgling was especially charming, and its calls carried across the distance to us. I was soon obliged to remove my camera from the scope so that Dawn could view it close up. After 10 minutes or so, the adult took flight, heading northward over the highway, on what we can only presume was a hunting expedition.

We ended our visit with a hike on the Esker Brook Trail, where we spotted more herons and got a nice close look at a Yellow Warbler, who seemed as curious about us as we were of it. The shadows and the bird's quick changes of perch in the nearby trees made it hard for me to focus my camera, so I settled for following the warbler's many hops in my binoculars. Our final stop before heading home was the Montezuma Winery, where we picked up some wine and mead(!), including the wonderful Canvasback Red, a recent addition to their line, and their excellent Merlot.

Birding and wine-- two of my favorite pastimes, and the makings of a fabulous day trip.