Good to Be Home!

I am not even going to try to explain why I haven't been posting. Mostly because I haven't been birding, and I haven't been home.

I got home late Saturday to the lovely rain and Sunday decided I was going to get out and see some birds. There has sure been a lot of change since I was last out. The summer birds are all gone and many of our winter birds have arrived. I wasn't able to spend a lot of time out, but I did hit a couple of spots and had some good birds.

Crestview Pond

I stopped by Crestview Memorial Park in hopes of some winter ducks, and I got a few. The last time I was at Crestview, this little pond was very low. The smaller pond in the back was completely dry. There was some water in the back and this pond was about 80% full. And there were some winter ducks: mallards, ring-necked ducks, gadwall and wigeon. I was surprised to see a roadrunner--the first one I have seen in this cemetery. The white-crowned sparrows were numerous, as usual in the winter. I got my first ruby-crowned kinglet of the season.

I then made a short stop at Lake Wichita Park for a trip down the Chat Trail and the barrow pit. The barrow pit has been dry for a couple of months, but had some water in it Sunday morning. No birds, but some water, at least. I didn't have time to actually go to Lake Wichita--hopefully over the Thanksgiving weekend. However, driving past the spillway area, there was a flooded spot where there were two northern shovelers.

Barrow pit--some water!

I did see a few good birds. The drainage ditch that runs adjacent to the chat trail was full and for the first time in many months, there was a belted kingfisher hunting. I also saw my first goldfinch of the season mixed in with some house finches along the trail.

Since it was my day at Wild Bird Rescue, I stopped by the Center to care for my charges. There was a fair sized flock of yellow-rumped warblers in one of the trees and an Inca dove out front (I stopped by this morning and there was a flock of a half dozen Inca doves in the front flower bed.)

Overall, a fairly good two hours. Here is a complete list of my birds: mallard, ring-necked duck, gadwall, American wigeon, northern shoveler, Canada goose, pied-billed grebe, ring-billed gull, killdeer, red-tailed hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, mourning dove, Eurasian collared dove, white-winged dove, Inca dove, downy woodpecker, belted kingfisher, roadrunner, blue jay, northern cardinal, yellow-rumped warbler, ruby-crowned kinglet, northern mockingbird, American robin, spotted towhee, house finch, American goldfinch, meadowlark sp., great-tailed grackle, European starling, white-crowned sparrow, house sparrow.

Good birding!