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Posted by Bruce P on 10:17:39 03/09/15
When I originally scheduled these walks with a 7:30am start time, I didn't think to consider that one of them would fall on the day of the change to DST! Admirably, 10 groggy souls dragged themselves out of bed and met me in the dark for what turned out to be a really nice and productive walk. Since we had a smaller group than usual (and most of them being dedicated birders) we decided to reverse the usual routine and did the ponds and interior of the park first, and then the boardwalk afterwards to give the songbirds a chance to wake up and get moving. A smart choice as it turned out as many of the waders were already quite active and close in. Everyone got great looks at the pair of Great Horned Owls, which seemed baffled by the sudden appearance of a herd of bid-eyed mammals with floppy hats.
We ended up with 50 species for the day, which was quite good considering that there has been little 'inbound' migration activity thus far. In addition to the owls, we also had Summer Tanager, Purple Martin, Blue-headed and White-eyed Vireo. Lots of woodpeckers as usual, including Northern Flicker and Pileated. We had a bit of a hard time tracking down the feeding flocks of warblers, but we did get some - mostly, Prairie, Pine and Myrtle. It does seem that the 'outbound' migration may have already begun, considering that we did not see a single BG Gnatcatcher and only a couple of Catbirds!
The link to the complete Ebird checklist is attached below.
The next trip is scheduled for Sunday, April 12. I hope you'll be able to join us.
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