First Birding Report of 2004
Tom and I took
the last day of February and “leaped” into birding for the year! Although we’ve seen birds here and there
for the past couple of months, we weren’t seriously birding, as the weather has
been so bitterly cold, and besides the birds being cold, it was a bit cold for
even us!
We
began our day with a delightful breakfast at the Wooden Spoon and decided that
the weather was nice, so perhaps some birds were beginning to come back to our
favorite place, Thorn Lake. We decided
to head out to Thorn Lake….but took a very different route than we usually
do. Along the way we saw mallard ducks, American kestrel, dark-eyed juncos
and ringneck pheasant. At Thorn Lake we were greeted with
hundreds of Canada Geese back at the lake,
as well as a snow goose. The ice has not yet melted on the lake, so
the herons aren’t there yet….but soon…very soon! As we wound our way around the backside of the lake to head back
this way, we noticed a very large bird in a tree with it’s back to us. We stopped of course and spent some time
watching it. It was a red shouldered hawk…a magnificent bird! After leaving Thorn Lake and that area, we
headed back to Jackson, and saw some swans,
starlings, red-wing blackbirds, rock doves….and
sandhill cranes! The mudderhens are back in
town!! We decided to drive out to
Stockbridge and along the way we needed to turn around and we found a small
road, almost a lane and noticed some bird activity and stopped. There were
many, a hundred?, lots anyway, cedar waxwings
eating the berries off of the bushes.
What a beautiful bird! They were
just outside our car window and we could watch them up close and personal. They would hang upside down sometimes to eat
the berries. There was a puddle of water
just at the edge of the road and they would fly down and drink. What a cool sight! In that same area we watched a couple of downy woodpeckers travel from tree to tree. As we drove into Stockbridge we saw a
couple of bluebirds and were able to stop
and watch them for a bit. We headed
back to Jackson and stopped at a local park for a few minutes. We watched mallards and Canada geese, and a
new duck we haven’t seen before, but quite interesting looking….muscavoy duck.
We also saw quite a few robins that
afternoon. I’d say spring has almost
sprung!
What
a lovely day it was and a great birding day.
I can’t wait until the next outing!!
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