On Saturday morning, Mom, Amelia, Harriet, Levi, Clara, and I packed into the van and drove down to the Cozad-Lexington-Overton area to shop some craft and antique stores (another story). We left at around 6:45 AM so that I could spend some time at Bitterns Call WMA in western Dawson County.
The funny thing about Bitterns Call WMA (besides that its name is a punctuational fail) is that the good habitat is actually south of and adjacent to the WMA proper. The WMA itself is solid cattail marsh. Everyone still calls it Bitterns Call WMA, though.
There are usually some decent mudflats, but the water levels were really high on Saturday.
Bird variety was good. Not as many shorebirds as I had hoped, but it was nice.
Blue-winged Teal were everywhere.
Yellow-headed Blackbird.
Bronze Copper.
Juvenile Baird's Sandpiper—always a crowd-pleaser.
Pectoral Sandpiper.
Cattle Egret.
Great-tailed Grackle.
Killdeer.
The funny thing about Bitterns Call WMA (besides that its name is a punctuational fail) is that the good habitat is actually south of and adjacent to the WMA proper. The WMA itself is solid cattail marsh. Everyone still calls it Bitterns Call WMA, though.
There are usually some decent mudflats, but the water levels were really high on Saturday.
Bird variety was good. Not as many shorebirds as I had hoped, but it was nice.
Blue-winged Teal were everywhere.
Yellow-headed Blackbird.
Bronze Copper.
Juvenile Baird's Sandpiper—always a crowd-pleaser.
Pectoral Sandpiper.
Cattle Egret.
Great-tailed Grackle.
Killdeer.
The sad news: after we got home, I checked my email and read that someone had been there later that morning and found a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron. BUMMER.
Complete list of what was found:
Location: Bittern's Call WMA
Observation date: 9/4/10
Number of species: 36
Wood Duck 1
Mallard 15
Blue-winged Teal 25
Northern Shoveler 1
Ring-necked Pheasant 2
Pied-billed Grebe 8
Great Blue Heron 2
Cattle Egret 1
Plegadis sp. 1
Swainson's Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
American Coot 20
Killdeer 15
Solitary Sandpiper 1
Lesser Yellowlegs 4
Semipalmated Sandpiper 5
Least Sandpiper 10
Baird's Sandpiper 3
Pectoral Sandpiper 3
Stilt Sandpiper 1
Wilson's Snipe 2
Red-necked Phalarope 3
Black Tern 2
Mourning Dove 2
Red-headed Woodpecker 1
Hairy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 1
Warbling Vireo 1
Blue Jay 1
Barn Swallow 10
Cliff Swallow 2
European Starling 10
Song Sparrow 2
Red-winged Blackbird 70
Yellow-headed Blackbird 70
Great-tailed Grackle 50
House Sparrow 1
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
I really enjoyed seeing the yellow-headed blackbirds!
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