Wednesday, April 16, 2008

STINKY POO & SPECIES NEW

I took the kids to the sanitation dept. trail in Kenton Co., Ky. If you don't know about it and are local you should check it out some time. It is just a little trail on the Banklick Creek but it always has some good birds. I got 3 new species for the year this evening around 6:30 pm. As usual we were greeted by the chatter of a kingfisher as we approached the creek. Eastern Kingbirds are always here but not yet this spring. I saw Wood Ducks on the creek after I flushed them which somehow are not on my year list yet!? There was a couple of Mallards also that hung out cruising down the creek. There was a ground hog, gopher type guy/gal walking around and some really big sliders on a log in the creek. Red-wings, song sparrows, goldfinches & robins were plentiful. I also got another new year bird in some Northern Rough-winged Swallows in the area. There were also Killdeer, vultures and flickers. The highlight due to the "life look" I got, was a Warbling Vireo. It was up in a tree across the creek catching some food and just hanging out for about 5 to 10 minutes about 30 yards away. Since the bank is quite a bit higher than the water he was just above eye level for me and the low sun was directly behind my back putting him in perfect bright sunlight. Apparently this is early for a warbling vireo because eBird didn't have it on my area list until I clicked the rare species button. Wood Duck, Northern Rough-winged swallow and Warbling Vireo bring the year list to 156. e2

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