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Author: Peter Kasper
Sunday, October 28
We had a fairly successful morning of birding today with the
main highlight being a
Snow Bunting that flushed from
the path leading to the sparrow hedge. This was the first
record in 5 years. Next on the list would be the
Northern Shrike that we encountered inside the main ring. The bison field produced a large (40 or so) flock of
Greater White-fronted Geese, a lone blue morph
Snow Goose and good
numbers of
Cackling Geese. Also present in increased numbers
were
American Tree Sparrows which along with the other
species mentioned above is a bird I associate with winter
weather, so though these records aren't particularly early,
it felt odd finding them in such pleasant weather as we had
today.
Sunday, October 21
It was very windy today, which makes birding rather
difficult. Nevertheless some good birds were found. In the
village lakes area the highlights were a flyover
Merlin, several
Bonaparte's Gulls, an
Orange-crowned Warbler, and some
Purple Finches. There was
again a good mix of waterfowl on the lakes, including the
first
Ring-necked Ducks for the season and surprisingly
large numbers of
American Wigeon. Lake Logo is still
producing small numbers of shorebirds and among them were a
Stilt Sandpiper, a
Dunlin, and several
Least Sandpipers. The first
Rusty Blackbird of the season was also
present there.
Sunday, October 14
it appears that Thursday's cold front has chased all the
warblers south. Apart from the inevitable
Yellow-rumped and
Palm Warblers I found very little in the way of woodland
birds. Notable exceptions, however, were
Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and
Purple Finches. On the other hand, waterfowl
and sparrows were in good supply. 12 species of waterfowl
were seen:
Canada Goose,
Mallard,
Gadwall,
American Black Duck,
American Wigeon,
Northern Pintail,
Northern Shoveler,
Green-winged Teal,
Blue-winged Teal,
Wood Duck,
Ruddy Duck,
Lesser Scaup, and
Hooded Merganser. Though sparrow numbers
were high, there were no particularly unusual species found.
However the list did include the first
Fox Sparrows of the
season.
Thursday, October 11
There was a female
White-winged Scoter on Lake Law this morning! This is only the second site record for this
species, the other one occurred on 5-Nov-1997 and was also
from Lake Law. A.E.Sea had quite a few waterbirds this
morning, including a
Ruddy Duck and numbers of
Gadwall,
Northern Pintail,
American Wigeon,
Northern Shoveler,
Mallard,
American Coot,
Double-crested Cormorant, and
Pied-billed Grebe. To add icing to an already good day, i
happened across a
Merlin by the High Rise just before
lunch.
Sunday, October 7
Given the time of year, I did remarkably well on warbler
species today. I found 11 warbler species, including my
first
Ovenbird for the year. A
Blue-headed Vireo was also
seen at the northwest corner of the Big Woods and
red-breasted Nuthatches continue to be be unusually
prevalent. Sparrows are now passing through the area and
today I found the first
White-crowned Sparrows and
Dark-eyed Juncos of the season. Also of note was the reappearance of
shorebird habitat at Lake Logo that produced good numbers of
Greater Yellowlegs, a handful of
Pectoral Sandpipers, and a
couple of
Lesser Yellowlegs and
Wilson's Snipe. Finally,
there was a
Peregrine Falcon flyover just east of A.E.Sea.
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