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Author: Peter Kasper
Sunday, December 30
It was a pretty good morning to be birding today; sunny, not
too cold, little or no wind, and good birds. Some of the
better birds for the day were: a male
Canvasback on the main
injector moat, a
Green-winged Teal on the main ring moat, a
Wilson's Snipe in a nearby drainage ditch, a
Northern Shrike inside the main ring,
Cedar Waxwings along south Eola rd.,
and a
Cackling Goose and
American Crow at Casey's Pond.
Sunday, December 23
It was cold, snowing, and very windy today, so consequently
we did not manage to find much of interest in the way of
birds. We did however, come across a magnificent dark morph
Red-tailed Hawk that remained perched close to us for
several minutes.
Sunday, December 16
I went out again today to try and relocate some of the
better birds seen yesterday. Despite the bitter weather I
managed to find both the
Lesser Scaup and the two
Ruddy Ducks. I didn't try for the thrush and the redpolls did not
put in an appearance at the feeders, however I did find the
Rock Pigeons that we missed yesterday and also a
White-crowned Sparrow at the garden club that was also
missed on the count day.
Saturday, December 15
Today was the day of the annual Fermilab Christmas bird
count. I will update my Christmas Count web pages just as
soon as I get all the data. The Fermilab part of the count
chalked up 45 species which is a little below our ten year
average due mainly to a poor waterfowl count, though we did
manage to pick up a
Lesser Scaup, two
Ruddy Ducks, and a
record breaking 150
Common Goldeneyes. The day started out
well with three Eastern Screech Owls before dawn. The best
birds of the day were the two
Common Redpolls at the Ed Center feeders and the
Hermit Thrush in the Village Pines both of which were new for the site count. Also of note was
a new high count of five
Northern Shrikes and some large
Cedar Waxwing flocks. The most surprising miss of the day
was
Rock Pigeon.
Thursday, December 13
A
Redhead was on the Main Injector moats this
morning. It was with two
Ruddy Ducks.
Tuesday, December 11
A
Common Redpoll was at the Ed Center feeders this
morning. The last time we had a redpoll on site was 1999.
Sunday, December 9
Today we concentrated on scouting out habitat in preparation
for the Christmas Bird Count next Saturday. The freezing
drizzle kept us close to the car so we didn't find a lot of
birds. Nevertheless we did find
Red-breasted Nuthatches both
in the village and near the bison feeders. A young
Cooper's Hawk was also hunting birds in the village, however the bird
of the day was a
Ruddy Duck on the Main Injector moats.
Saturday, December 8
Late afternoon birding was slow except for a mix of
waterfowl in Main Ring Lake including a good quantity of
Common Goldeneye and
Northern Shoveler along with several
Lesser Scaup and
Common Mergansers.
The main targets for the evening were Eastern Screech Owls, two of which were located in two different locations
in the Big Woods (One Grey and one Red). Dave Sunday, December 2
A good variety of waterfowl rescued what would otherwise
have been a slow day of birding.
Canada Geese,
Mallards, and
Cackling Geese crowded round open patches of water on all
the larger lakes and among them were
American Black Ducks,
Gadwall (Casey's Pond),
Northern Shovelers (A.E.Sea), an
American Wigeon (Casey's pond), a couple of
Green-winged Teal (Main Ring Lake),
Northern Pintails (Lake Law and Main Ring Lake),
Hooded Mergansers, a
Snow Goose (Lake Law),
Common Mergansers, and
Common Goldeneyes. The only other
sightings of note were some flyover
Red-winged Blackbirds, a
flock of
Eastern Bluebirds, and several
Northern Harriers.
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