On a beautiful Sunday, four SIB members visited Bear Island and briefly Donnelly Wildlife Area. 72 species were identified for the day….none of them were bears!
It was slightly foggy as we arrived at sunrise but the time at Mary’s Pond was productive. The Tundra Swan had yet to arrive for the winter but we saw our first ducks of the day….Mottled Duck and Gadwall. The first of several flocks of Glossy Ibis flew over. For the day, we posted 13 Glossy Ibis and 16 White Ibis. We truly think we saw more of each but we count conservatively since the birds don’t wear name tags and we never knew if the same bird flew by multiple times.
Susan Markum got her Bald Eagle fix! As we were approaching Bear Island on Green Pond Road, a Bald Eagle was almost leading the way as it flew down the road. We saw 6 Bald Eagle at Bear Island, both adult and immature. Our day ended with one perched in a Loblolly Pine at Donnelly.
We mentioned several times that people would laugh as we discussed the identification of various birds. At one stop, we had much discussion and finally decided the bird in the bush to the left of the path was a Sedge Wren. It posed nicely for us to identify it. Across the path was a smaller bird we finally agreed was a Winter Wren. Earlier in the day we had also seen House Wrens and Carolina Wrens. Our discussions made me more comfortable in my wren identification skills. (Note: these wren pictures were from other days).
At one of our last stops, the conversation went something like this:
Judy: What is that bird in the grasses?
Nancy: It’s a Killdeer
Judy: It’s wrong color for a Killdeer
Jennifer: It’s too small for a Killdeer
Judy: It’s too big for a Killdeer
That’s when we realized we were looking at 3 different birds! Jennifer was nice enough to take what we knew would be a less than ideal picture as shown above then with the three birds circled. Below are the three extracted birds.
Once we realized we had 3 birds, we were able to identify the birds as:
1 – Wilson’s Snipe
2 – Killdeer
3 – Western Sandpiper
Since we had 72 species for the day, some notables included:
– “Stop!” – that’s the rule when passengers see something. No “niceties” of “please stop” needed. We stopped for American White Pelicans, Cooper’s Hawk and of course Bald Eagles
– The quantities weren’t great but we had Blue-winged Teals, Black-bellied Whistling Ducks in addition to the Mottled Duck and Gadwall mentioned earlier.
– Did I mention Pied-billed Grebe? We reported 52 but again, I think this was a significant under estimate of those cute little swimming friends we saw on every pond
– As we were “following” the Bald Eagle down Green Pond Road, we had to stop in the middle of the road to admire the 250+ Fish Crow singing as they prepared for their morning adventures.
– Fall and winter means sparrows in addition to ducks. Savannah Sparrows, Song Sparrows, Swamp Sparrows, Chipping Sparrows and White-throated Sparrows challenged our identification skills as we refreshed our skills for this winter.
I’d be remiss to not mention the beautiful American Avocet we saw. We saw a few earlier but at the same spot as our “hidden birds”, a flock appeared in the distance then flew overhead. Susan was able to capture the moment.
Anytime you see this many species, you ask yourself “What are our notable misses”? This day, our list was rather extensive. We didn’t see (or hear) Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Piliated Woodpecker, Roseate Spoonbill, Wild Turkey (sorry Jennifer) or Red-tailed Hawk. We may have been surprised but none of us were disappointed in the beautiful fall day.
Submitted by: Judy Morr