Posted by Luis Gonzalez on December 10, 2018 at 01:50:33
Today a total of 14 birders joined me for a walk around Barnes looking for some of the wintering birds of the park, unfortunately the warbler variety and numbers was the lowest I've seen in the park during winter, missing common winter birds like Ovenbird, Black-throated Blue and Yellow-throated Warbler, alongside the diping in the Broad-winged Hawk that was being previously reported within the park. With that said, the low warbler numbers turned out to be a blessing since everyone was back in their cars by 10 when rains began to pour, a species total of 42 was still welcoming with these being the highlights. Water/wading birds were the most seen in the park in one walk including Tricolored and Green Heron along with Pied-billed Grebe, Anhinga, many parrots/parakeets were heard, but only one Red-masked Parakeet was seen flying over and later in the day, two Blue-and-Yellow Macaws were also seen flying over the canal for a brief second, and a variety of raptors like Osprey and two American Kestrels gave us a nice view of each species in the pines. The main high point however goes to the sighting of a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker that shared the trees around it with a Downy and Red-bellied Woodpecker, giving us a chance to look at all of the wintering/resident woodpeckers of the park in a 3-for-1 special. Thankfully all the species seen before the walk started were spotted later on in the day, so the final species tally is as follows: Muscovy Duck (Established Feral) 21 Pied-billed Grebe 1 Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) 1 White-crowned Pigeon 2 Eurasian Collared-Dove 6 Mourning Dove 8 Common Gallinule 2 Ring-billed Gull 2 Anhinga 1 Double-crested Cormorant 1 Great Egret 1 Tricolored Heron 1 Cattle Egret 2 Green Heron 1 White Ibis 9 Turkey Vulture 34 Osprey 1 Cooper's Hawk 2 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 1 Red-bellied Woodpecker 6 Downy Woodpecker 1 American Kestrel 2 Blue-and-yellow Macaw 2 Red-masked Parakeet 1 Eastern Phoebe 1 Blue-headed Vireo 2 Blue Jay 9 Fish Crow 48 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 9 Northern Mockingbird 5 European Starling 7 Red-winged Blackbird 2 Common Grackle 6 Boat-tailed Grackle 4 Black-and-white Warbler 1 Common Yellowthroat 1 American Redstart 1 Northern Parula 1 Palm Warbler 12 Yellow-rumped Warbler 9 Prairie Warbler 2 House Sparrow 3