Resources

Cayuga Lake Basin Checklist (PDF) and
Ithaca Christmas Bird Count Checklist (PDF)

Cayuga Lake Basin First Records and Arrival Information, and Shorebirds In The Cayuga Lake Basin.

Birdingonthe.net maintains a vast catalog of local and regional mailing lists from around the country and provides searchable archives of recent postings.Locally-relevant lists are Cayuga, Genessee, Oneida, Hudson/Mohawk, New York, Northern New York.

• The club has a Conservation Committee.

• The David Cup is an informal competition to see who can see the most birds in the area in the calendar year.

• The club has a Motus Wildlife Tracking Tower at Myers Park.

• The Ithaca Christmas Bird Count, organized by the Cayuga Bird Club, takes place on January 1st every year.

• The Loon Watch at Taughannock Falls State Park is an all-volunteer effort to count Common Loons as they migrate south down Cayuga Lake each fall.

• The Cayuga Lake Osprey Trail is an ongoing inventory of the osprey nests and platforms easily observable from public roads in the Cayuga Lake area.

• The Cayuga Trails Club (CTC) maintains more than 75 miles of trails through prime bird habitats of all sorts, mainly on the Finger Lakes Trail. The CTC is affiliated with the Finger Lakes Trail Conference which is the coordinating group for the Finger Lakes Trails System.

• Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology provides a wealth of information about birds, an extensive collection of bird sounds and videos, educational opportunities and bird monitoring opportunities.

• The Cornell Plantations Path Guide is a guidebook to the Cornell campus's many paths and trails.

• The Finger Lakes Land Trust owns and maintains a number of nature preserves that provide some of our best bird habitats.

• www.ithacamaps.org is a GIS project with information about Ithaca, down to individual buildings and trees, from an interactive map application.

• Kevin McGowan chronicles some of the area's rarer sightings and tougher IDs on his Bad Photos of Good Birds page.

• The Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge is part of the Montezuma Wetlands Complex. It is the scene of the annual Montezuma Muckrace.See also The Montezuma Birding Trail.

• The New York State Ornithological Association (NYSOA) provides news of rare sightings and links to bird clubs statewide.

• NYSOA also publishes the journal The Kingbird, serves as the home of the New York State Avian Records Committee (NYSARC), and organized the Atlas 2000 New York State Breeding Bird Atlas project.

• Nearby Audubon societies and bird clubs with excellent web sites that have information about Finger Lakes birding areas

Birding Club at Cornell

Eaton Birding Society

Chemung Valley Audubon Society

Onondaga Audubon Society

Rochester Birding Association

• Cayugabirds-L (web view), hosted by Cornell University, generates daily sightings of birds in the Finger Lakes region (with a focus on the Cayuga Lake Basin), as well as lively discussions on bird behavior, identification, habitat, and more. For more information contact list owner Chris Tessaglia-Hymes. Cayugabirds-L is not directly affiliated with the Cayuga Bird Club.

• Cayuga-RBA is a SMS-based rare-bird alert (RBA) system for the Cayuga Lake Basin.

• NYSBirds-L (web view), also hosted by Cornell, has the same function as Cayugabirds-L but covers the entire state of New York. Chris Tessaglia-Hymes also serves as list owner of NYSBirds-L.

• Geneseebirds-L and Oneidabirds-L serve nearby regions that partially overlap the Cayuga Lake area.

• Rare Bird Alert Birdbox. (315) 637-0318 is the official bird sightings hotline of Onondaga Audubon. Transcripts are posted to the Cayugabirds, Oneidabirds, and Geneseebirds mailing lists.

• eBird lets you enter all your checklists while using your data in an international database of bird populations.

• NYS eBird Hotspots is great for finding other good birding spots nearby.

• ProFlowers has a useful guide for plantings for attracting birds to your garden.

• This helpful page from TreeRemoval offers many useful links for beginners.

• A beginner's guide to bird watching by HomeAdvisor.

• Cornell Cooperative Extension has published a very helpful document on Hayfield Management and Grassland Bird Conservation.

• Tree Musketeers have a starter kit for anyone interested in exploring the hobby of birdwatching.