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Posted by Trey Mitchell on 17:45:46 01/02/10
I arrived at the Coastal Prairie Trail trailhead at about 6:15am to and began looking for Owls and Nighthawks. About 6:45 I heard a Short-eared Owl calling/barking from the tree line to the North. A few minutes later an owl flew into a clump of trees 40-50 yard in front of me and gave out a whooooo... Nice, a Great Horned Owl.
Shortly other birds began to wake and call. I had 3 Sedge Wren calling within 50 foot of me and one popped up for a minute for a quick look. Then I had sparrows calling and a number of Palm Warblers as well. I was able to ID one of the sparrows as a Savannah.
As soon as the sun was up I gathered my gear and headed down the trail. It was pretty wet, but mostly it was very slippery in the mud. I stayed on the edge of the trail walking on the vegetation laying down on the edge of the path. I didn't find much in the Hammock area at the beginning of the trail but out on the Prairie there were Sedge Wren calling and Sparrows making themselves known. It was hard to ID the Sparrows because they tended to only show themselves for a moment then duck for cover in the 18-24 inch high ground cover. I saw at least 40 more sparrows than I was able to identify.
I walked west for about 2 miles and made a walked half of that off trail to the south. I was able to see the bay well and the tide was out exposing mud flats with waders, shorebirds and Pelicans. I didn't see many warblers. I did see two female Indigo Buntings which was nice. As I walked the trail I didn't think I was finding much, but I did see and ID both species of Sharp-tailed Sparrows which was good because I didn't really want to walk all the way out to the Sharp-tailed spot to the northwest being that I was doing the count alone. It would have added 2 miles of high-stepping to the trip and little more than a few more sparrows. All in all it was a productive walk and very enjoyable even with the muddy trail.
American White Pelican 37
Brown Pelican 7
Great Blue Heron (Blue) 8
Great Blue Heron (White) 1
Great Egret 27
Snowy Egret 15
Little Blue Heron 3
Tricolored Heron 1
Reddish Egret 1
White Ibis 31
Roseate Spoonbill 9
Wood Stork 3
Black Vulture 4
Turkey Vulture 21
Osprey 3
Bald Eagle 1 Immature
Northern Harrier 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 4
Short-tailed Hawk 1 Dark
Peregrine Falcon 1
Black-bellied Plover 150
Killdeer 10
Willet 2
Short-billed Dowitcher 12
Laughing Gull 7
Ring-billed Gull 3
Royal Tern 2
Great Horned Owl 1
Short-eared Owl 1 Documentation Requred
Whip-poor-will 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker 3
Eastern Phoebe 7
Great Crested Flycatcher 1
American Crow 27
Sedge Wren 6
Marsh Wren 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 8
Gray Catbird 3
Yellow-rumped Warbler 2
Prairie Warbler 1
Palm Warbler 24
Common Yellowthroat 2
Savannah Sparrow 6
Grasshopper Sparrow 1
Nelson's Sharp-tailed Sparrow 2
Salt-marsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow 1
Sharp-tailed Sparrow Sp. 3
Swamp Sparrow 1
Indigo Bunting 2
Eastern Meadowlark 3
50 Species
Total 472
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