Hello everyone,
Ten hardy birders braved the cold, which seemed extra uncomfortable because we’re not used to it yet. It was strange to have such bitter cold while there are still many green and autumnal colored leaves on the trees. The lagoons are freezing up and we had some very interesting ice formations where the branches of the fallen trees touch the water by the south bridge. I don’t think that I’ve ever seen that before and Marisa got some nice photos to capture the memory. The sun was shining, the sky was a beautiful bright blue, and we ended up with a respectable 22 species.
We had our first Red-breasted Mergansers of the season in the lagoon. A Belted Kingfisher, Great Blue Herons and one juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron are still present. We saw a couple Red-bellied Woodpeckers performing acrobatics to get at seeds, and they were very vocal, perhaps giving each other tips on how best to extract the seeds.
After peeking in the back doors of the museum to get a look at the Christmas trees, we found a large flock of house finches in the west parking lot – a nice surprise to end the walk.
BIRDERS: Darby, Cheryl, Marian, Jennie, Mike, Luther, Daniela, Margalit, Eric, Marisa.
TIME: 8:00am to 10:15am
WEATHER: Sunny and very cold. At the start of the walk the temperature was 14 degrees with a wind chill of 9 degrees.
Compiler: Cheryl
Photographers: Marisa and Eric
Canada Goose Number observed: 23
Mallard Number observed: 2
Red-breasted Merganser Number observed: 5
Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) Number observed: 4
American Herring Gull Number observed: 1
Black-crowned Night Heron Number observed: 1
Great Blue Heron Number observed: 4
Red-tailed Hawk Number observed: 1
Belted Kingfisher Number observed: 1
Red-bellied Woodpecker Number observed: 2
Downy Woodpecker Number observed: 3
Hairy Woodpecker Number observed: 2
Northern Flicker Number observed: 1
American Crow Number observed: 4
Black-capped Chickadee Number observed: 7
European Starling Number observed: 35
House Finch Number observed: 12
American Goldfinch Number observed: 12
American Tree Sparrow Number observed: 2
Dark-eyed Junco Number observed: 18
White-throated Sparrow Number observed: 1
Northern Cardinal Number observed: 5
If you’d like more information about a bird, check out the All About Birds ID guide:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/
Corrections, additions and comments are welcome.
Good birding everyone,
Jennie
Photo: White-crowned-Sparrow by Geri Kodey