16th Birthday Birding

Today on my 16th birthday (my golden birthday) I got my driver's license and visited some of my favorite birding spots. Among these were a few wetlands and a couple dairy farm ponds in the Missouri River Valley.

Among the many birds I saw the most interesting were the first migrant warblers that I have seen so far this fall at a place called Owego Wetlands. A short hike in a small wooded area produced Northern Waterthrush, American Redstart, and Black-and-white Warbler. Many first of the fall migration Ruby-crowned Kinglets were flitting about in the trees. Not only was it the birds here that caught my attention but also the other animals and plants. A Monarch was feeding on some sort of flower when I first got there.

I found and photographed a couple flowers in the wooded area. I am not sure what they are but maybe someone reading this will. If you know please post a comment and let me know.

A tiny tree frog was sitting on a dogwood leaf when I was there. Does anybody know what species it is? As I was headed out of Owego, I found and photographed a female Blue Grosbeak.

At one of the stops I made a cooperative Killdeer allowed me to get a nice picture of it. Usually they fly off before I can get close enough for one but this one was not so shy.

At one wetland I found this Painted Turtle laying on the side of the road. Ten Great Egrets as well as 6 Great Blue Herons were at that wetland as well. Despite a lot of searching I could not find a Snowy Egret, a bird I have been wanting to find this year. A Great Horned Owl flew from a rather treeless area along the road onto a pole out in the middle of the place in broad daylight. I got a picture of him as he sat there watching me.
The view of the wetland I just mentioned was very nice from atop a dike which had a road on it. This road overlooks the marsh and makes it easier to view the birds there. At a drier part of the wetland a field was covered in goldenrod and Big Bluestem grass which made for a nice picture. The Loess Hills are in the background.

After birding I headed back home and had steak, crab, and much more at Outback Steakhouse with my dad which was a nice end to a very exciting but rather busy day.

Birding at Pilot Knob and Eagle Marsh

*Make sure look at the previous posts I made, I have been putting out quite a few these past few days to catch up and don't want you to miss them.

Back on June 1 I took the 3 hour journey up to Pilot Know State Park in north central Iowa with Paul to look for a Hooded Warbler and other warblers that were being seen there. The park is named after the hill there which is the second highest point in Iowa. We got started a little bit late but we still saw some nice birds. The first bird on our list of things to find was the Connecticut Warbler. We looked and played a tape right where it was seen the day before but we were unsuccessful in finding it.

The Hooded Warbler was next and we found the bird fairly easily. It posed very nicely at sometimes but it would often move as you brought up your camera to take a picture. Despite that I got this nice picture of my 308th life bird. He decided to sing just as I took it.

Here is another picture of the same bird.

The Hooded Warbler is quite the rarity this far north in Iowa. They usually hang out in the southern and eastern areas of the state.

The other bird we were wanting to find was a Cerulean Warbler. We found one of these stunning blue birds and I got a great photo of it. The natural lighting was great, plus I added the flash to make the eye and the underside stand out. Obviously I had the settings just right when I took that photo. It turned out great, and the eye showed up which really added to the photo!

When we were done with looking for warblers we went off in search of other woodland birds around the park. We heard a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker and a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher while driving and walking around. Another thing that we found was a family of Eastern Phoebes. The young ones were all squished tightly into the nest which was under a picnic shelter's roof.

On the way home we stopped by Eagle Lake (marsh). There were lots of cattails and plenty of deep water for marsh birds to reside in. When we first got there I easily discovered a Red-necked Grebe and a Western Grebe. Since the discovery I made, the local birders have been monitoring these birds which are still there. Ruddy Duck, Sora, Northern Harrier, Marsh Wren, and Swamp Sparrow were also there on the marsh. We heard an Alder Flycatcher there and on the way out we picked up five Olive-sided Flycatchers.

We had a great day of birding and I got one life bird as well as four year birds. That concludes my birding adventure to the second highest point in Iowa.

Memorial Weekend Birding Part II

On Saturday birding friend Paul came and picked me up and we went out birding around the county like I did on Thursday but we visited some different areas.

The first place we did some birding was on a small dirt road about 3 miles from my house up in the Loess Hills. The bushes along the road had several foy Bell's Vireos as well as Least and Willow Flycatcher. A couple Sedge Wrens and Grasshopper Sparrows were calling from the grasslands that surrounded the area. Bank Swallows were nesting in a cliff that was created when the cut through a hill to put in a road. Paul got a photo of a swallow with my camera for me since they were not on my side.
The sun was shining and the birds were singing all over the place. Bobolinks were found a mile or two down the road and were singing their strange jumbled song. As we moved on we found a few more grassland birds including an Eastern Meadowlark an more Bell's Vireo putting us at 12 for the day.

We headed down to the Missouri River Valley to a place called Table Marsh WMA. We were surprised to find so much water and so many birds there. We knew it was there but didn't think that it was as large as it was. Over fifty American White Pelicans were there resting on a small island. Surrounding them there were tons of shorebirds including American Avocet, Dunlin, and Stilt Sandpiper. Black Terns and a Forster's Tern were cruising the area looking for food. A number of Great Egrets were fairly close to the road. They were a bit shy and flew as soon as we got close enough to get a photo. I did however manage to photograph one.
Waterfowl were also there including a Green-winged Teal (strange to see them this time of year), two Hooded Mergansers, a Gadwall pair, and Blue-winged Teal, Mallard, and Canada Geese. We found a large mud flat with even more shorebirds on it. We found a few Semipalmated Plovers there as well as the other shorebirds previously mentioned and some more common ones. Before we left we checked the large cattail stands for birds and found a Sora, a few Yellow-headed Blackbirds, and a good supply of Marsh Wrens. After that it was time to head home after a nice five hours of birding. Table Marsh really surprised us and appears to have a lot of potential and we will be heading back to do some more birdwatching for sure! One thing I forgot to mention that there is a dike that runs along the west side of the marsh making it easy to observe the birds from above, revealing more birds than we could see from eye level.

That concludes my Memorial Weekend Birding.

Memorial Weekend Birding Part I

Spring migration is coming to an end and I am seeing less and less migrants and more resident birds instead. This past Memorial Weekend I tried desperately to get as many birds as I could to add to my year list and even my life list. We were a bit short on passerines like warblers and vireos. This spring was absolutely HORRIBLE for migrating passerines. I have only seen 12 species of warblers so far this spring compared to the 23 species I saw during spring migration last year. That is a difference of eleven species! Despite the lack of warblers we still had a good weekend.

Although not considered part of Memorial Weekend I am going to include Thursday because it was the first day of summer break and sort of started the weekend for me. To celebrate the first day of summer break my mom and I headed out in search of birds around the county that we call home. We ended up with 98 species, with one of them being a life bird. The first good bird that we found was a Lapland Longspur at a place called the Luton WMA. This was the latest date that anyone had seen one in Iowa by one day. It was neat to see it in it's full breeding plumage. I tried to get a picture of it but my attempts were unsuccessful. In the same general area we had three Blue Grosbeaks (foy) and some Dunlin.

The next two places we stopped at were cattle farms. They produced 31 Snow Geese and two Upland Sandpipers.

Sandhill Lake had some good birds including a Black-bellied Plover which was my 308th life bird! It was on a small pond that had lots of other shorebirds on it. More Snow Geese were there but only four.At a place called Brown's Lake we found a number of birds but none was of much interest except for some Purple Martins that were on a nesting box. Not far from there was New Lake. We found 8 Hudsonian Godwits as well as some Great Egrets. An Osprey was tending it's nest that sits on top of a cell phone tower about a mile away from both New Lake and Brown's Lake.

After a successful time birding the Missouri River Valley we decided to bird some Woodland areas up in the hills. We visited Stone State Park and Bacon Creek Park and found Scarlet Tanagers, Ovenbirds, etc. At Bacon Creek I was lucky enough to see a Cerulean Warbler. The bird was reported to me by a local birder. The directions he gave me were very helpful and I found the bird right where it was said to be. It was singing up a storm and seemed very territorial. I managed to get a few crappy shots of the bird. The lighting was worse here than anywhere else we had previously visited.

We finished the day back in the valley at Owego Wetlands. I needed a few more birds for my day list so we headed down there so I could do some wading. I scared up three Soras and saw a Green Heron fly by. The last new bird of the day if I remember correctly was a Western Kingbird, but I could be wrong. It was a fun day to be out and I was able to add some birds to my lists. Stay tuned for part two of my Memorial Weekend Birding.

Birding in the Rain

Today my mom and I went out birding for a couple hours after a dentist appointment. It was rainy but warm and there were a few birds out and about. Some of the first birds we saw were around 40 Franklin's Gulls that flew over the road.

More gulls were seen shortly after that a cattle farm but they were not Franklin's but Ring-billed instead. We had five of them as well as Snow Geese and Double-crested Cormorants. After that we decided to check for the Snowy Plover at another farm pond but we had no luck finding it or any other shorebird there.

The best birding of the short trip was at Owego Wetlands. I dusted off my waders that have been sitting unused for just under a year now at my house and took off into the wetlands to search for Soras, Virginia Rails, American Bitterns, etc. One of the first "highlight" birds was a foy Marsh Wren that popped out of the cattails to come check me out. After that I saw three more of them as I worked my way through the tangles of weeds. I began to doubt that I was going to see any of my target birds but I was wrong. About halfway through my journey I flushed a foy Sora. On the way back to the car I flushed up two more Soras (heard another) and a foy American Bittern.

On the way back home I stopped by the Luton WMA North and came across Paul. After we talked for a minute he started to head off and as he did a Black-crowned Night-Heron flew into the area and sat at the side of the pond we were overlooking. It was the best look I had ever had of a night-heron and it was another foy. Of course I called Paul and he turned around and saw it as well.

Also seen on the way back was a Canada Goose family with six young ones. The "runt" (the bird with the red circle around it) in the group kept falling behind the rest. His future doesn't seem very bright. I had a nice day of birding and got to go wading which I always enjoy doing. I had four year birds on the trip as well as a foy Swainson's Thrush in my yard the same morning which put my year list up to 159. Almost forgot to add that I saw a Red-headed Woodpecker, the first one I have seen in Iowa this year.

Calm Before the Snowstorm

Today was a great day to be out-55 degrees and sunny. The beautiful weather here is often short lived this time of year as we transition from winter to summer. This latest round of warm and sunny weather is about to come to an end tomorrow as a huge blizzard is going to cover the area with 12+ inches of the white stuff. No this is not some late April Fools joke! I can't believe that we are going to have such a big snowstorm so late in the season. I hope the snow melts quickly!

Anyway, today I went out and did some birding with Paul R, a birding friend of mine through the hill country and saw some nice birds. The most interesting thing of the day were the three Loggerhead Shrikes we saw. We found one pair and then a bird all by itself. We also found a pair of Cooper's Hawks but we couldn't find a nest anywhere in the vicinity of where they were. We did confirm nesting for Belted Kingfisher however, because we saw one go into a hole in a dirt bank near the road. It was neat to see that. Year birds included Savannah Sparrow, Fox Sparrow, Brewer's Blackbird, and Rusty Blackbird. I must not forget to add Harris's Sparrow for all those out of the Midwest.

We also got a few shorebirds in the Missouri River valley at the dairy farm ponds. Dunlin, Greater Yellowlegs, Lesser Yellowlegs, and Baird's Sandpipers were the shorebirds that weren't Killdeer. There were lots of ducks as well but nothing to interesting. The wetlands in the area were full of ducks as well as some FOY American White Pelicans. Two Northern Harriers were also found.

Today was "the calm before the storm" and it was great to be out birding. I might need to get out and look for longspurs on the back roads in our area, so if I am insane enough to head out I will post about my finds then.

It's that time of year again...

It's springtime again and the birds are on the move. The past couple days I have been out watching the waterfowl, looking for some new arrivals. Birds are literally all over the place around the wetlands. The skies are filled with many flocks of ducks and are almost always filled with something to see. Among the thousands of ducks and geese I picked out some year birds including American Wigeon, Blue-winged Teal, Canvasback, Northern Shoveler, and Ruddy Duck. Ring-billed Gulls were also migrating through but were only around for a short time. Killdeer and Common Grackles as well as the occasional Brown-headed Cowbird are back and are as annoying as usual. The warm weather the past few days has really pushed the birds north with the south winds. Today it got up to a beautiful 73 degrees Fahrenheit, the warmest it's been all year. At last, winter has released it's icy grip on our area that seemed to be colder than usual this year.