Great Fall Birding!

Fall colors at Lake Wichita Park

I decided to make a stop at the Chat Trail in Lake Wichita Park after my Sunday morning grocery run. Honestly, I wasn't in a good mood, and almost decided to go straight home. However, I had no freezer items, and I haven't been out in a while, so thought I would take a quick little walk and get a little exercise, at least. I am so glad I went! I came home in a much better frame of mind and saw some great birds too! I hope I can find many of these again on the Christmas Bird Count on December 17.

Fall has finally arrived in our area. The temperature was in the 40s and it was a little overcast, but no wind, so a great day to be outside birding. We have a little color in the trees now.

Common yellowthroat. Photo by M. Nazelrod. Retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

When I pulled into the park, hundreds of cormorants and white pelicans were making their pilgramage to the settling pond on Fairway--I am sure some of them proceeded on, but I didn't stick around to watch. One of the highlights this morning was the common yellowthroat. If I see one, it is almost always along the chat trail or in the reeds around the barrow pit. I don't see them often. When I do, it is just one. This morning, I saw five! Three males and two females.  They are such pretty little birds.

Anotther favorite was the marsh wren. It is not uncommon to have one in the winter. However, I was able to see a total of four, and I am pretty sure there were others in the reeds, because they were chattering up a storm.

A large raft of 20 pied-billed grebes was on the barrow pit. I don't usually see that many together. And a Wilson's snipe rounded out the day. There were a lot of sparrows in the brushy areas--I hope they all turn up again in a couple of weeks.

Here is a complete list from this morning:

White pelican
Double-crested cormorant
Ring-billed gull
Great blue heron
Northern shoveler
Bufflehead
Mallard
American coot
Pied-billed grebe
Wilson's snipe
Downy woodpecker
Red-bellied woodpecker
Cooper's hawk
Northern harrier
Eurasian collared dove
Belted kingfisher
Marsh wren
Blue jay
Northern cardinal
Northern mockingbird
Ruby-crowned kinglet
Common yellowthroat
Yellow-rumped warbler
Orange-crowned warbler
Eastern phoebe
White-crowned sparrow
Lincoln's sparrow
Song sparrow
Savannah sparrow
American goldfinch
House finch
Cedar waxwing
Red-winged blackbird
American robin

All-in-all, a great hour and a half on the Chat Trail.

Good birding!

Beautiful Morning at Lake Wichita Park

Lake Wichita Park is very close to my house, so I often bird there, especially since Lucy Park has been cleared out in the hopes of better flood control.

This morning dawned bright and sunny, although with a chilly bite once the wind came up. I headed out to the Chat Trail, past the barrow pit and then over to Murphy's Mound and back. A pretty good morning. 

A couple of highlights:

Common yellowthroat male,
Matt Tillet, Wikimedia Commons

  - A male common yellowthroat in the reeds in the marshy area at the corner of the Chat Trail and the Circle Trail. I have seen common yellowthroats in this area before, but not since before the drought. I always look for them there. They sound a little like wrens when they are rummaging in the reeds, so do a little extra looking if that is the case. In spite of the "common" in the name, they are not so common here. 

  - One of the great horned owls was perched in his usual spot along the Chat Trail. A lot of trees have fallen down in the that area--I hope that doesn't run the owls off. 

  - As I was heading back to the car, a flock of some 21 cedar waxwings flew into the tree next to the trail. There is a shallow place in the ditch where they were flying down with the robins to take a nice bath. They didn't seem to be overly concerned with me--I was pretty close to them.

The ducks seem to be pairing up before heading back north. There were a few dozen northern shovelers on the barrow pit. Almost all of them were a male/female pair with a few lone males interspersed.

View from the overlook

Now that the lake is full again, the wildlife viewing overlook once again provides good views over the water toward the dam and Pelican's Point. It is has been nothing but weeds for some years with the drought, but a nice area now. I did see several ducks this morning.

I didn't see any pelicans on the lake this morning--there were some good-sized flocks circling yesterday. I am trying to remember when they will be leaving.

When I got home, I had a beautiful little male ladderbacked woodpecker in the pecan tree out front and a orange-crowned warbler looking for insects in the hackberry tree next to the feeders out back. Neither counts for Project Feederwatch, but good birds in my yard. I have had a paucity of good birds in my yard since we moved to this house, so I am happy to see some showing up. Hopefully that means my efforts to make the yard more bird friendly are beginning to pay off.

Birds seen/heard in Lake Wichita Park this morning: Canada goose, mallard, ruddy duck, bufflehead, gadwall, northern shoveler, pied-billed grebe, American coot, great blue heron, ring-billed gull, Eurasian collared dove, mourning dove, great horned owl, red-bellied woodpecker, yellow-shafted flicker,  belted kingfisher, blue jay, cardinal, American robin, northern mockingbird, ruby-crowned kinglet, common yellowthroat, house finch, goldfinch, spotted towhee, song sparrow, white-crowned sparrow, cedar waxwing, and European starling.

Wonderful start to Sunday--unfortunately, housework calls......

Good birding!

Good Birds for Mother's Day

Treated myself to birding at Lake Wichita for Mother's Day and had a very nice bunch of birds. I went down the chat trail to the barrow pit and then stopped for a short time by the playground and main pavilion at the south end of the park.

It's getting to the time of year when you have to start early in order not to melt into a puddle after an hour or two. We're not quite there, but it was close to 80 degrees when I got up at 6 AM. But it isn't yet miserable weather in the morning. But with predictions of temps returning to the 100 degree mark in the afternoons, it won't be long.

So far this spring there haven't been many mosquitoes, but with the recent rains, they are back. Not horrible, but you can definitely tell they're around.

Left: yellow warbler photo by Dori, Wikimedia Commons.

It's warbler migration season and I am sure I missed several with the heavy foliage along the chat trail, but I did see and hear a number of yellow warblers. I also saw a common yellowthroat along the drainage ditch along the chat trail. I know I saw a vireo I couldn't quite identify. I know some species it wasn't, but not certain about what species it was. The story of my birding life.

One of the morning's highlights was watching a black-chinned hummingbird pluck an insect out of a spider's web. It may have caught the spider itself, but I couldn't tell for sure, but whether a spider or insect, it was a plump morsel.

When I got to the barrow pit, I was surprised at the number of water birds still present. Not a lot of them, but several types, to include: mallard, ruddy duck, blue-winged teal, cinnamon teal, gadwall, northern shoveler, redhead, American coot, and pied-billed grebe. There were also a number of Wilson's phalarope on the water. These are such a slender, elegant bird, I enjoy seeing them when they pass through on migration. I did not realize until I read the species account I linked to the name above, I didn't realize that in this species the female is the more colorful bird and the male incubates the eggs.

Photo left, eastern kingbird by Dori, Wikimedia Commons

One of my best sitings of the morning were Eastern kingbirds. I have very occasionally seen one here in the past. I saw two near the bridge from the chat trail to the dam and then another near the entrance to the chat trail on the way out.

I then decided to make a quick stop at the inlet adjacent to Wild Bird Rescue, but was thwarted by a swarm of bees. It seems there is a swarm in that area around the willows every spring.

Overall a very nice morning with some good migrants. There are still cedar waxwings in large numbers--they should be gone in the next week or two, so I am enjoying these pretty birds while I can. My birds this morning included: killdeer, Wilson's phalarope, great blue heron, green heron, Canada goose, American coot, cinnamon teal, blue-winged teal, northern shoveler, redhead, ruddy duck, gadwall, pied-billed grebe, mallard, turkey vulture, red-tailed hawk, Swainson's hawk, Mississippi kite, Eurasian collared dove, white-winged dove, mourning dove, American robin, brown thrasher,black-chinned hummingbird, northern mockingbird, blue jay, cardinal, scissor-tailed flycatcher, eastern kingbird, western kingbird, cedar waxwing, chimeny swift, barn swallow, purple martin, house wren, red-winged blackbird, common grackle, great-tailed grackle, brown-headed cowbird, yellow warbler, common yellowthroat, chipping sparrow, clay-colored sparrow, and house sparrow.

Happy Mother's Day and good birding!