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Posted by tricia on 18:21:47 01/13/08
A bird in the hand...is soon released.
Yesterday I made an early morning trek up to KPPSP to volunteer at Marianne Korosy's sparrow drive.
As part of a study of grasshopper sparrows, Marianne allows volunteers to help flush the birds from the prairie and into the mist nets where they will be removed, weighed and given a brief physical assessment ,banded and then released.
It was fascinating HARD work!!
We captured Bachmanns sparrows,Grasshopper sparrows (both Floridanus and the migratory sp.)Savannah sparrows, a sedge wren and just missed a Yellow rail that flushed multiple times and then flew over the net much to the dismay of the birders that were present.
Julie joined me there after an all night drive from NC and we were happy to see some familiar faces including our own Dan Irizarry,in attendance.
It was a great day and I highly recommend it to anyone interested-there are two more sparrow drives this winter.
We were finished at about 200 pm and decided to make the most of a long drive so Dan, Julie and I drove up to Joe Overstreet Road to look for the Whooping Cranes I had seen in late December.
On the way there Julie found an eagle pair on a nest, a flock of 40 or so Sandhills while Dan and I each saw different Caracaras and I saw my sixth Fox Squirrel.
Arriving at Joe Overstreet Road we stopped and looked for the pair of Fox Squirrels that I had seen recently.Couldn't find them and I felt bad because Dan mentioned he had not yet seen a Fox Squirrel.
Further down the road we we stopped to watch a juvenile Caracara flipping cow patties.Another car stopped and looked and then mentioned that the Whoopers were down near a pond where I had seen an Eagle last time so we headed off to get some Lifer Whoopers for Julie and Dan.
Found three in a cow pasture and enjoyed them for many minutes before we headed in the direction of the Landing for more special finds.We were briefly delayed by a traffic jam in the road.Eventually the COWS!! departed and we parked at the Landing.
First bird here was an Eagle flyover then a juvenile Snail kite that is reliably there.Next, Dan found three Wilsons Snipe and we had another Eagle flyby. Sandhill Cranes were raucously chortling all around us and we found another Whooper (Whoopee#4) in the cow pasture here. We started to head back to our vehicles and decided to stop in an get sodas for the road when who should pop up on a palm tree but the world's friendliest FOX Squirrel(FS #7 for me and #1 for Dan)!!!
The three of us parted company with plans to return in the near future.
On the way home ,Julie stopped and had Dancing Cranes and we both had yet another Eagle.
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