Foggy Morning

Sunday morning I went birding at Lake Wichita Park. The fog made for a damp morning, which was a pleasant change of pace. The morning was also much cooler than our recent weather--in the mid 40's and overcast.

I took the photo to the left to show the fog. However, if you didn't know the lake, you probably wouldn't think there was much. The lake is not that big, so the opposite shoreline is usually much more distinct.

What is obvious from the photo is the low lake level. If we don't get some good rains soon, it will be a miserable summer for people, plants and wildlife.

Perhaps because of the weather, the birding was adequate at best, although I did see my first scissor-tailed flycatchers of the year (yes, Bob, I realize you saw your first a week earlier...) and two eared grebes on the barrow pit. Other than that, it was a pretty lackluster morning for birds. The fog made up for the lack of birds though.

In Lake Wichita Park I saw: great blue heron, ring-billed gull, mallard, American coot, eaared grebe, pied-billed grebe, white pelican, double-crested cormorant, bufflehead, northern shoveler, ring-necked duck, pintail, ruddy duck, killdeer, mourning dove, Eurasian collared dove, white-winged dover, cardinal, red-winged blackbird, spotted towhee, robin, northern mockingbird, scissor-tailed flycatcher, yellow-rumped warbler (both myrtle and Audubon's), song sparrow, white-crowned sparrow, great-tailed grackle, European starling, dark-eyed junco, blue jay, and house sparrow.

I then took a quick pass at the spillway on the other side of the lake and added Wilson's snipe, blue-winged teal, greater yellowlegs, gadwall and barn swallow to my list for the morning.

So overall a decent morning.

Good birding!