[birding] Birding by Ear field trip, Yellow-headed Blackbirds & Red Crossbills

[Lisa Millbank]

The ASC Birding by Ear class went down to Finley today and we had a great time.  Fortunately, the morning rain stopped and it was just calm and overcast.  One of the first birds we saw before we left was a PILEATED WOODPECKER at Avery Park.
On Bruce Rd. we saw a GREAT EGRET at McFadden Marsh, not too common around here this time of year.  At the little cattail pond there were plenty of YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRDS, as Molly reported, with males displaying and "singing" what must be beautiful music to a female's ears.  HORNED LARKS sang just to the south of us.  A flock of TURKEY VULTURES dined on a dead raccoon on the road, and a couple of Blacktail Deer had their nice reddish summer coats.  We walked the Pigeon Butte/Maple Knoll trail, and along the old road we got great, close looks at a flock of RED CROSSBILLS happily conversing.  Along Maple Knoll we listened to a variety of nice birds: WESTERN TANAGER, WILSON'S WARBLER, PACIFIC-SLOPE FLYCATCHER, LAZULI BUNTING, COMMON YELLOWTHROAT, WINTER WREN, BROWN-HEADED COWBIRD, PURPLE FINCH, SPOTTED TOWHEE, BLACK-HEADED GROSBEAK, HAIRY WOODPECKER, BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER, etc.  Don called in a pair of WRENTITS, and the male sang in response.  We were surrounded by singing SWAINSON'S THRUSHES between Maple Knoll & Pigeon Butte, and we did get a pretty good look at one.  On our way back, a WESTERN WOOD-PEWEE was singing his "extended" song, "fe-ew, a-dee-deedee, fe-ew..." and so on.  There were too many other common birds to list!
Columbia Lilies, Forktooth Ookow, and Douglas' Spiraea were blooming.  There was a huge patch of Showy Milkweed along Bruce Rd. east of the train tracks, that we'd never noticed before.
We wished we'd had our cameras for the Yellow-headed Blackbirds and the Red Crossbills.  But they tend to be a hassle and distraction on field trips so we left them at home.
Lisa Millbank
Don Boucher
www.neighborhood-naturalist.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.midvalleybirding.org/pipermail/birding/attachments/20090613/e7eb67cf/attachment.html