Hello! Most of my posts take place around San Diego County, (Mostly Lake Murray) unless otherwise noted.
For more posts and photos, I also post on Hubpages, a site that is a bit different than others. Thanks!: Shorebirdie on Hubpages

Monday, February 18, 2013

Last Day of the Great Backyard Bird Count


I did all four days of the Great Backyard Bird count and counted 83 different species.  On Saturday and Sunday, I had to work, so my counting time was short.  I took the photo above of Famosa Slough on Sunday.  The falcon was stirring up all the birds and I got to see dozens of killdeer circling around as well as a willet, avocet and whimbrel who all left the area due to the constant fly over of the falcon.

Today, I went to the South Bay where there wasn't much going on.  The tide was mostly out and most of what I saw were sandpipers like below.  I think three of these are western sandpipers.  The one on the left might be a least sandpiper.  I saw only a few least sandpipers today.


The power plant is now gone, but some of it remains in a pile:


Eventually, the tide started coming in and I could see, in the distance, a long-billed curlew, avocet, and I think a couple black-bellied plovers.  There were killdeer, marbled godwits, and willets, too.  I also saw several savannah sparrows.

I went over to the Bayside Park in Chula Vista and saw a red knot.  At first, I didn't recognize it until I saw the chevrons, but asked for help to ID it because of the black legs:



There was also a juvenile reddish egret, too:


I was disappointed that several species that I know where around a few days ago weren't there during the count.  This includes scrub jays, spotted towhee, Forster's terns (though I thought I heard one, I wasn't sure, so I didn't record it), Caspian and Royal terns, Eurasian wigeon, glaucous-winged gull and yellowlegs.

No comments:

Post a Comment