Birding Notes

It has been almost 3 weeks since we went out birding. We had two goals in mind: one was to see what shorebirds were in the local area, and the second was to see if there were still ducks on the lakes.

We did see a number of wading birds, but were surprised at how few ducks were on any of the lakes or sloughs. I guess they all fly north for the summer.

Here are a few images:

Two American Avocets at a slough near a feedlot on Hwy 23

Here is the image of a Black-necked Stilt and a Solitary Sandpiper (lifer #149)

Here is our second lifer of the day (an Eared Grebe)

Here is a Marbled Godwit on the road in front of us:

Finally, our last photo of the day: an extended family of Canada Geese:

Here is a table summarizing the day's observations.

Name	Photo	Time	Location	ID#	2007 #	Lifer
American Avocet	Yes	10:30 am	Slough near feedlot on hwy 24	.	.	.
Wilson's Phalarope	Yes	10:37 am	"	.	.	.
Marbled Godwit	Yes	10:39 am	"	.	.	.
Spotted Sandpiper	Yes	10:44 am	"	.	.	.
Black-necked Stilt	Yes	11:04 am	Slough near Kehoe lake	.	.	.
American Avocet	Yes	11:05 am	"	.	.	.
Solitary Sandpiper	Yes	11:06 am	"	149	110	Yes
Willet?	Yes	11:07 am	"	.	.	.
Eared Grebe	Yes	11:08 am	"	150	111	Yes
Killdeer	Yes	12:34 PM	Kehoe lake	.	.	.
Wilson's Phalarope	Yes	12:35 PM	"	.	.	.
Herring Gull	Yes	12:37 PM	"	.	.	.
Marbled Godwit	Yes	12:47 PM	"	.	.	.
Yellow-headed Blackbird	Yes	12:59 PM	"	.	.	.
Eastern Kingbird	Yes	1:00 PM	"	.	.	.
Western Meadowlark	Yes	1:19 PM	"	.	.	.
American White Pelican	Yes	1:22 PM	"	.	.	.
Northern Pintail	Yes	1:32 PM	"	.	.	.
Willet?	Yes	1:32 PM	"	.	.	.
Canada Geese & goslings	Yes	1:37 PM	"	.	.	.

SUMMARY of the session: A great day. We identified two new lifers (the Eared Grebe, which we realized as soon as we saw it, and the Solitary Sandpiper, which we did not realize until we identified it later from the photo. The key identifying feature was the size of the bird compared with the Black-necked Stilt that was beside it. The solitary sandpiper was a Canadian lifer, but we had seen one last year when we were in the United States. We took our time and even set up the spotting scope and watched the birds for awhile. I would like to try visiting this area and having a few hours to set up my spotting scope. This trip brought home the importance of preparing for a trip. We were both a little rusty and quickly identifying the many different ducks as well as a few new birds. I was also disappointed in the images I took with my digital camera. One area I need to improve on is high speed movement of birds in flight. The trick here is twofold (one is focus - but the answer is to manually focus on infinity; the other is to increase the shutter speed to the maximum that the exposure will allow). Our total for Canadian birds in 2007 is now 109 and our lifer list for Canada is 148.