Twelve participants enjoyed a wonderful, sunny coastal day birding with Jimmy Billstine on Saturday, November 20th.  Everyone including beginners to more-seasoned birders gained a lot of experience from Jimmy’s wealth of information which included how to describe to others where a bird is, where within any habitat is a good area to find birds, and how to entice birds to be better seen.  Jimmy also mentioned that anyone can find a rare bird; it is not just the realm of the super birders.

 

Jimmy led us to five spots: Ni-les’tun Unit of the Bandon Marsh, the North jetty of the Coquille River, Bandon’s Old Town wharf, Curry County’s Boice-Cope Park and the New River Nature Center. Jimmy worked hard to find us lots of birds. I recorded the following 37 species, though I most likely missed of few.

  1. Western Meadowlark
  2. Yellow-rumped Warbler
  3. Junco
  4. Chestnut-backed Chickadee
  5. Fox Sparrow
  6. Golden-crown Sparrow
  7. Song Sparrow
  8. White-crowned Sparrow
  9. Northern Flicker
  10. American Crow
  11. Rock Dove
  12. Golden-crowned Kinglet
  13. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
  14. Hutton’s Vireo
  15. Wrentit
  16. Pacific Wren
  17. Black Phoebe
  18. Red-breasted Nuthatch
  19. Northern Harrier
  20. Sharp-shinned Hawk
  21. Double-crested Cormorant
  22. Pelagic Cormorant
  23. Great Egret
  24. Canada Geese
  25. Mallard
  26. American Wigeon
  27. Bufflehead
  28. Northern Shoveler
  29. Red-breasted Merganser
  30. Lesser Scaup
  31. Surf Scoter
  32. Common Loon
  33. Eared Grebe
  34. Western Sandpiper
  35. Least Sandpiper
  36. Western Gull
  37. Glaucous-winged Gull

Bird field trips are wonderful activities not only to see birds, but to spend the day enjoying the great outdoors with wonderful people. Thank you Holly, Nancy, Rockey, Dick, Kate, Atheana, Adam, Lindsay, Bill, Beth, Diana, (Harry too…) and especially Jimmy for sharing the day!