Paul Szmal: FLX Morning continues as we are coming up on 840. Clouds and sun across the Finger Lakes region, temperature at 53. Like to welcome in Cassidy Antanasio, she's the Community Conservation Manager for the Montezuma Audubon Center. Cassidy, good morning, how are you this morning?
Cassidy Attanasio: Good morning, how are you? I'm great. I'm doing well, doing well.
Paul Szmal: And it's fall bird migration season, which means that the Montezuma Audubon Center and the Montezuma Wetlands Preserve as well, you're going to see a variety of species making their way through.
Cassidy Attanasio: That's right. This fall is looking great. We had a little bit of a quick fall here. It was really hot, really dry, but we're seeing all the birds react pretty well to the cold snaps we're getting now. So we just celebrated World Migratory Bird Day last Saturday. So that should have been kind of our peak for bird migration throughout the Atlantic Flyway. According to BirdCast, we had 456 million birds in flight last night as they're migrating through the Atlantic Flyway. So that's a great resource.
Paul Szmal: Wait a minute. Did you say 456 million?
Cassidy Attanasio: Yes.
Paul Szmal: Wow. So a lot of our migratory birds are flying in the middle of the night, so we don't get to see that action very much. But it's a great sight to see the radar, just millions of birds making their way down south this time of year. That's amazing.
Cassidy Attanasio: Yeah. So these cold fronts are kind of cuing the birds to start their way through. I'm seeing a couple of my favorite birds coming through. We have our beloved birds that we've been seeing all summer kind of making their way down south, our shorebirds, the osprey are starting to leave. We've had the egrets starting to leave. But we're now seeing all of these duck species that I love. We have scop, ring-necked ducks, northern pintail, wood ducks, American black ducks, all those teal. And then the star of the show is probably the sandhill cranes. People love the sandhill cranes. I love to see them. They're kind of new to upstate New York, and we're seeing them come through right now. So they're starting to come down here, make their stopover site here at Montezuma. And then they'll keep going down south all the way to Florida. Great sight to see. I think peak, hard to say this year with the sudden temperatures, but we're usually seeing hundreds of them around Halloween time. So I would definitely try to make the trip out if you haven't seen them yet.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, and one of the great ways to be able to see these birds, whether they're in the air or stopping down for a rest, is to take a driving tour.
Cassidy Attanasio: Absolutely. Yeah, we have driving tours at Montezuma. They're guided. You can get in the van that we have, or you can follow along in the van. Every Thursday at 10 a.m., we're doing guided tours. They're super awesome. Last week on our guided tour, we did see the cranes. It was amazing. We saw bald eagles. So that's a great thing to do just because you never really know where the birds are going to be. So it's just good to have somebody kind of chauffeuring you around to point out where the birds are.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, and there is another place where you can check things out if you want to do a morning bird walk. This happens in Port Byron, actually, but it's part of the Montezuma Audubon Center's programs.
Cassidy Attanasio: Yes, so that is a part of our On the Canals fall hikes. So we have a series of fall hikes every Saturday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. So this weekend, the locations do change a little bit just for accessibility, which is awesome. And those are free programs. So the one in Port Byron this weekend, there's one in the morning, one in the afternoon on Saturday, October 18th. Next weekend, that will be in Syracuse the 25th. So there will be one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Again, those are free. So binoculars provided, bird guides provided. Great opportunity for beginner birders to come out, get comfortable with identifying birds, just see the sights and get outside.
Paul Szmal: And if you want to see how the wildlife is preparing for winter at the Montezuma Audubon Center, I'd recommend the Autumn Harvest Wildlife Hike. That's also happening on Saturday morning at Montezuma.
Cassidy Attanasio: Yes, it is. We'll hike through our Montezuma Audubon Center trail system here, which is an amazing resource for the public to just come and visit anytime they want. But the Guided Harvest Hike on the 18th from 10 to 12 will be exploratory through the forest, through our marsh habitat, seeing those different birds that we might be seeing just for a short amount of time here in the fall before they make their journey.
Paul Szmal: Also coming up on October the 22nd, this is something where if you'd like to volunteer, this is at the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge. The woody invasives like buckthorn and some other stuff are going to be removed. A chance for you to get into nature and kind of get your hands dirty a little bit.
Cassidy Attanasio: Absolutely. If you know me, you know, I don't like invasive species. So that Marsh Montezuma Alliance for the Restoration of Species and Habitats volunteer group is an amazing volunteer group. We have a great group of core volunteers that come out every single time for that. We've been doing great work so far this season, collecting native seed species for restoration projects across the Montezuma Wetlands Complex. So that opportunity on the 22nd will just be another opportunity to do habitat restoration work on the complex, get your hands dirty, remove some of that invasive species to pave the way for more native species here to help our birds.
Paul Szmal: And I love the title of this event. It's coming up on Friday, October the 24th at the Montezuma Audubon Center. It's called Happy Owloween. I love it.
Cassidy Attanasio: Yes, that is a classic we are bringing back. People love Owloween. This is a great time of year to see the owls, hear the owls. Won't hear them in flight because they're silent flyers, but they are an amazing spectacle here at Montezuma. That is a great hike at 6 p.m. that day. We'll take you through our forest again. We do have a lot of owl species. We see saw-wet owls, screech owls, great horned owls, barred owls here on the complex. So great chance to see some unseen wildlife that day.
Paul Szmal: Now if you want to find out more information or how to register for some of these events, so on and so forth, the website is Audubon.org, A-U-D-U-B-O-N.org slash Montezuma. So go check out the website. It's got all the information on all the upcoming events that we've talked about here.
We're getting towards Halloween here, just a couple of weeks away, as a matter of fact, a little over a couple of weeks away. And there's probably some good bird-friendly Halloween tips that we could share at this point.
Cassidy Attanasio: Absolutely. Halloween is my favorite holiday. So I was already decorated months ago. But this is the perfect time to be conscious of those migratory birds as they're trying to move through our area. So I'm sure a lot of people listening know about bird collisions, very common with windows this time of year. So you might have an exposed window, bird collisions pose a threat to migratory birds this time of year, just because they get very confused by the light, the reflection. So making sure to just cover your windows and decorations, that is my, you have the okay to do that. I would recommend just covering your windows in decorations, whether that's, you know, those little sticky decals, anything that can show a bird that there is a window there while they're migrating, just to prevent those bird collisions. And preventing the use of those fake cobwebs, that can also cause entanglements in migratory birds that might need to be rescued after that. And then that will slow them down on their migratory path. But there are some great things that you can do too, you can leave your pumpkins out for the birds in an area that you're comfortable with wildlife visiting. Birds love pumpkins, other wildlife love pumpkins. So that's a great opportunity to just leave food out for them on their migratory path as well. And then of course, drive slowly at night. There's going to be birds flying at all different heights. Bird collisions are very common this time of year. And also, of course, there are children trick-or-treating, traveling. So just making sure that you're conscious at night, taking it slow.
Paul Szmal: I wanted to put the spotlight on, we usually do this when Chris is here, on one of the species of birds that are out and about, and maybe this time of year might be more prevalent than others, I'm not sure. But I wanted to ask you about turkey vultures.
Cassidy Attanasio: Yeah, so turkey vultures, I think, are perfect to talk about this time of year. They're very Frankenstein's monster kind of bird, perfect for Halloween. They're very misunderstood. And they're starting to migrate now. So you will see them in very large groups. I was just at Tigannic Falls this past weekend, and there were 50 turkey vultures swarming over the falls. It was very beautiful. They're riding what we call thermals, which is that rising warm air this time of year that combines with the cold air in the atmosphere. So they're taking a break, riding the wind thermals, hunting for carcasses. And they're great. They're cleaning up the neighborhood. They're starting to, you know, gather in their groups, making sure they're coordinating their flights down south. And they're very easily recognizable from their V shape in the sky. So they'll hold their wings above their head. That's a very easy way to recognize them in flight. But they're cleaning up the neighborhood. Turkey vultures, very common around here. They're able to sniff out, carry on with an above average sense of smell in comparison to other bird species and even other vulture species. So you'll notice that they're bald. Also a great example that bald is beautiful for them. They're incapable of growing feathers on their head on purpose to keep clean while feasting on carcasses of other animals.
Paul Szmal: Right. Makes sense.
Cassidy Attanasio: Yeah. And studying their incredible, powerful stomach enzymes that allow them to stomach the more harmful bacteria that live on their carcass meals. So they're quite the spectacular species and we'll be seeing them a lot this time of year.
Paul Szmal: And again, if you want to find out more about a tour, a driving tour, or any of the events that we talked about, go to Audubon.org slash Montezuma Cassidy. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
Cassidy Attanasio: Thank you for having me. Happy birding.
Paul Szmal: That is 8.52 on FLX Morning.
