Thursday 26 July 2012

Patch work

Now that classes have finished I have more flexibility to explore the local birding spots.

Columbia Lake, my typical location to visit, is still dried out.
This was once all water:

Great Blue Herons are usually hanging around in their dwindling hunting grounds:

A family of Caspian Terns at Snyders Flats today was unexpected.
The middle bird is the juvenile. It has an orange bill (while the adults have red bills), the cap is streaked with black rather than the solid black of the adults, and the mantle wasn't a solid grey.

Caspian Terns haven't been known to breed in the county before, so these could be a first county record. But it's hard to know if they flew here from another location after the juvenile was strong enough to fly...
Another family was nearby.

I'm getting eager for fall migration to really get started! Fall migration, for me, is more exciting than spring migration - maybe I'm just saying that because fall mig. is just around the corner...