Bird Walk at Lake Arrowhead State Park

The first bird walk at Lake Arrowhead State Park was this morning. The rain was kind enough to hold off until around lunch, so it was a decent morning although overcast. We didn't see a lot of birds, but it was still a nice time.

The only other person who came was Mike, one of the readers of this blog. We had a nice walk of a little over an hour. The Bewick's wrens were singing all over. We are on the border between the eastern and western meadowlark territories. I tend to see/hear more eastern meadowlarks. Today the meadowlarks were singing and they were westerns.

We saw: northern cardinal, eastern phoebe, Canada goose, American coot, white pelican, great blue heron, northern mockingbird, mourning dove, Eurasian collared dove, western meadowlark, Bewick's wren, red-winged blackbird, northern flicker, white-crowned sparrow, field sparrow, great-tailed grackle, common grackle, killdeer, double-crested cormorant and red-bellied woodpecker. We also saw a duck species, some gulls and some small peeps--all were too far away and in too poor light to make a positive ID.

After Mike and I split up--he to visit the prairie dogs and I to do a little more birding--I went over to the area around the equestrian camping area. I had some good luck there, adding robin, kestrel, dark-eyed junco, house finch, Carolina chickadee, eastern bluebird, and ladder-backed woodpecker. 

I didn't get any decent pictures of the birds, although perhaps Mike did. I did get more next pictures to add to my collection as well as this nice picture of one of the prairie dogs (right) and a pretty wildflower (left)--I have not idea what kind it is, but it was interesting, so I took a photo.

We'll be continuing the bird walks on the second Saturday of each month. We start the summer schedule in April, so the walk will start at 7 AM.

Good birding!