Well - The Big Sit! has been Sat! once again...on a beautiful fall morning, a
crescent moon and a very bright Venus greeted Jay Keller and myself at 5:30am
as we climbed to the top of the observation tower at Huntley Meadows Park -
our first official bird? Canada Goose!honking in the darkness. Quickly followed
by a Great Blue Heron. We heard one Great Horned Owl...No rails, but there
were some Snipe. Larry Meade and Depesh (?) joined us as dawn approached. The
Barred Owls started going off. We could make out shapes on the pond - One Green
Heron, 11 Wood Duck mixed in with the Geese, Great Egrets and one lone GW
Teal. As the morning progressed, we had one small mixed flock that had some YR
Warblers and a few Palm Warblers mixed in. Seems like the front didn't pass
until noon and the NW winds picked up. Our first Bald Eagle blew by about 12:15
and we had a few "bursts" of raptor activity during the afternoon with
Sharpies,
RS Hawks, a few RTails and a few Coopers. The afternoon slowed to a crawl and
it almost started to be hard, hard work to add a new bird. But given what a
beautiful day we had to be sitting in such a beautiful place, we sat in peace...
Many thanks to all the volunteers, Jay Keller, Larry Meade, Depesh, Len
Alfredson, Fred Bogar, Paula Sullivan and Sharon Lynn - we tallied 55 species
for
the day - a little disappointing as we had passed the 60 species mark the
previous three years - oh well...
Here's the species list, - Rich Rieger
GB Heron
Great Egret
Green Heron
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Canada Goose
Wood Duck
Mallard
GW TEal
Bald Eagle
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Coopers Hawk
RS Hawk
RT Hawk
Killdeer
Greater YLegs
Lesser YLegs (actually saw one bird that only had one leg - would that make
it a Yellow Lessaleg?)
Common Snipe
RB Gull
Rock Pigeon
MoDo
GH Owl
Barred Owl
Chimney Swift
B. Kingfisher
Red-headed WP
Red-bellied WP
Downy Wp
Hairy WP
No. Flicker
E. Phoebe
Blue Jay
Am. Crow
Fish Crow (yay)
Car. Chickadee
(King) Tutted titmouse
WB Nuthatch
Car. Wren
House Wren
RC Kinglet
Eastern Bluebird
Am Robin
No. Mockingbird
YR Warbler
Palm Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Towhee
Song Sparrow
Swamp Sparrow
WT Sparrow
No. Cardinal
Indigo Bunting
RW Blackbird
Common Grackle
Am Goldfinch
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