Trip to Hornsby Bend

On Saturday, I went to Hornsby Bend with my dad to look for birds. We had woken up before seven to escape the heat of the later day while we looked for birds. We first saw killdeer, black-necked stilts and small sandpipers that were standing in and around some small pools of water and mounds of dirt. There was also a nighthawk roosting on the ground, though unfortunately I was not able to get any pictures of it. We looked around the pools of water for a while, then walked to the small lakes to look for ducks. We saw some black-bellied whistling ducks and mallards, as well as a green heron flying by.

As we continued walking, I saw my first lifer of the day, though I didn't know it at the time - a black tern. I got some pictures of it flying away and had no idea what it was until I later put it on iNaturalist. After it flew away, we walked along the side of the lake until we saw another birder. He was looking at a lesser yellowlegs and some pectoral sandpipers, trying to identify them. After talking to him, we kept walking until we got to the end of the lake, where a group of birders was watching a far-away fling of small peeps and raft of ducks. One of them said that there was a Baird's sandpiper mixed in, and though I could barely see it, it was another lifer for me.

After that, we walked away from the lakes and into the more forested area, hoping for some songbirds. As soon as we got there, we heard a very loud bird chirping somewhere in the trees. Merlin said it was a white-eyed vireo, which would have been a lifer for me had I seen it. Unfortunately, it was too far in the leaves of a tree to see, but we did see a ruby-throated hummingbird perch on a branch nearby. It was 9:30 and getting hot, so we decided to leave and saw some scissor-tailed flycatchers on the way out.

由使用者 ellington 在 2021年09月04日 17:22 所貼文