I drove down to Dead Creek early this morning - and it was well worth
the effort! The best sights:
first one, then two adult Virginia Rails - then two, then five, then
six fuzzy, black, no-tail young (showing quite a considerable size
range) - I watched the whole family for almost an hour. Then,
foolishly, I decided to run back to my car for my camera - and never
saw any of the birds again.
If you want to find the rails, drive into the access road. Note the
first little cluster of tall trees on the left. Stop halfway between
this and the next clump of tall trees (also on the left). The Rails
were in the cattail "island" not far from the road. They came out
first to feed in the area between the road and the left-hand part of
the island, and then spent a lot of time directly to the right of the
island, in among lily leaves. I'd recommend getting there as early in
the morning as possible (or maybe at dusk).
Yellow Warbler frantically searching for food to feed her one baby: a
loud, demanding Cowbird chick!
3 Osprey overhead at once
an adult Bald Eagle on the dead tree that's in the water by the
farthest parking lot
2 Thrashers together - I've seen more of this species this year than
ever before.
15 (!) Great Blue Herons counted on a quick drive from Route 17 to
the Brilyea Bridge at just after 8AM - only 6 seen an hour later
2 small, short-tailed, bobbing sandpipers feeding with adult Spotted
Sandpipers - I'm assuming they were young ones, but I've never seen
the young of this species before.
Here's the whole list:
Number of species: 44
Canada Goose 20
Wood Duck 4
Mallard 1
Great Blue Heron 15
Osprey 3
Bald Eagle 1
Red-tailed Hawk 2
Virginia Rail 8
Sora 1 - heard "neighing" from the same island where the rails were
Killdeer 6
Spotted Sandpiper 7
Least Sandpiper 13
Ring-billed Gull X
Caspian Tern 4
Mourning Dove X
Belted Kingfisher 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Pileated Woodpecker 1
Alder Flycatcher X
Willow Flycatcher X
Eastern Kingbird X
Blue Jay X
American Crow X
Northern Rough-winged Swallow X
Tree Swallow X
Barn Swallow X
Marsh Wren X
Wood Thrush 1
American Robin X
Gray Catbird X
Brown Thrasher 2
European Starling X
Cedar Waxwing X
Yellow Warbler 1
Common Yellowthroat X
Savannah Sparrow X
Song Sparrow X
Northern Cardinal 2
Indigo Bunting 1
Red-winged Blackbird X
Common Grackle X
Brown-headed Cowbird 1
American Goldfinch X
House Sparrow X
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
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