What a beautiful early morning at Lake Arrowhead State Park for the monthly bird walk. Driving into the entrance to the park, I saw a large white-tailed deer doe standing on the side of the road.
Only one person came besides me, but it was still a reasonable morning for the middle of summer. Before the other person came, I heard a painted bunting and an eastern phoebe. Unfortunately, we didn't get them again.
On our walk, we saw: green heron, great blue heron, little blue heron, snowy egret, great egret, killdeer, Canada goose, mourning dove, Eurasian collared dove, red-bellied woodpecker, northern mockingbird, house finch, red-winged blackbird, great-tailed grackle, scissor-tailed flycatcher, cliff swallow, and barn swallow. We also saw some peeps from a distance that we couldn't identify for certain.
Bill Coombs, who lives on Lake Arrowhead and is part of Friends of Lake Arrowhead State Park, volunteered his pontoon boat to take us out to "Bird Island." This is a large rookery, with nesting herons and egrets of all kinds. We added cattle egret, double crested cormorant, mallard and turkey vulture there. Bill also provided some history of the lake.
When I got back to shore, I heard a bird up in one of the mesquite trees on the way back to the car. After listening and looking carefully, I found a cardinal's nest inside a large clump of mistletoe. Driving out I noted some lark sparrows along the road.
On my way back to town, I passed a red-tailed hawk on the ground next to the road on FM 1954.
It was really getting oppressively hot by 9:00 AM when I left the park.
Good birding!
2 comments:
A good day at Lake Arrowhead.
Yes, it was. You should come out one week--or best results, you might want to look September or later.
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