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 The following is an email message from Scott Baldinger describing an amazing bird event on 2/7/17 in Orange County.
Photos by Scott Baldinger
While down in Florida, for the past 10 days, I was following with great interest Karen Miller's posts of Snow Geese in large numbers being seen late in the afternoon in Fancher Davidge Park which is located in the middle of Middletown, NY. We're so used to seeing huge flocks this time of year out in Pine Island on the black dirt sod farms, I would never expect to see big numbers of them in such an urban environment. Well, apparently as dusk settles in many of these geese head over to Fancher Davidge to roost.
This afternoon I arrived at the park around 3:35 pm and the pond which is in the center of the park had 6 Canada Geese on it. It was a cold and raw afternoon and lightly raining (it had rained most of the day). At around 3:50 pm I heard the honking of Snow Geese and for the next 65 minutes I watched in amazement as skein after skein of these beautiful geese flew in settling on the pond. I had been following Karen's posts of several hundred geese coming in the late afternoon and I was amazed at how many flew in late this afternoon. Conservatively there were 3000 plus Snow Geese on the pond when I finally left. It truly was amazing seeing such a huge number of Snow Geese in the middle of this urban area. Some of the locals came by and watched in amazement claiming they've lived all their lives in Middletown and never witnessed something like this!
All I can say is WOW!!
 — Scott Baldinger
Warblings, Spring 2017
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