the Way of the Turtle

A Bit of Walking at Braddock Bay Park & Braddock Bay Raptor Research Center
Saturday, October 3, 2009

NYS DEC Braddock Bay WMA page
Braddock Bay Raptor Research site

Had a tough time getting my backside in gear today, so I didn't get to stop anywhere on the way out to Rochester. The weather was pretty decent when I got there, so we decided to go for a short walk. First we stopped at Braddock Bay Park and walked down to the observation platform out in the wetlands. Not much to see... the reeds and grasses are lot browner than the last time we were there, and there were swans, geese, and ducks out in the bay, too far off to really get a good look at them.

After that we headed west to the Braddock Bay Raptor Research Center. The trails were a lot more overgrown than when we were there back in the spring, but also a lot drier. I didn't expect we'd see any owls but had hoped we might hear some, but no such luck. In the end we wandered around for a bit checking out the trees and then headed back home.

Ironically, the best place to see raptors this weekend wasn't the woods, it was along 390 and 490, which I sometimes refer to as "Hawk Alley." This time of year it's not unusual to spot red-tailed hawks perched on the light poles; we probably saw half a dozen different birds as we drove around this weekend. While it's always fun to see them, it's also frustrating, since I almost always want to stop and take pictures and that's really a bad idea on a major highway...

JMH