This was our first month switching to a summer start time of 7 am to beat the heat! It is one thing to step out in your yard to bird at 7 am but another to get up early enough to get to Ford’s Pond by 7 am! We didn’t know what to expect but we had 7 early-to-rise participants join us! It was a beautiful morning. We started out looking down at the ponds from the parking lot overlook. If we had not done so, we would have missed the 4 WOOD DUCKS on Woodruff pond since the south side trail between the two ponds was still closed for finishing the ADA pathway.

Other highlights included 6 CINNAMON TEAL, a WESTERN x CLARK’S GREBE (hybrid – white above the eye), 3 BONAPARTE’S GULL (easy to I.D. once they landed in Ford’s Pond), and a GRACKLE sp. (large wide tail, but no photo). We also enjoyed watching a BALD EAGLE swooping down and catching a fish.

We found 27 bird species with a total of 126 birds.

25 Canada Geese, 4 Wood Duck, 6 Cinnamon Teal, 8 Gadwall, 26 Mallard, 1 Hooded Merganser,1 Pied-billed Grebe, 1 hybrid Clark’s Grebe, 3 Eurasian Collared-Dove, 6 Mourning Dove, 2 Vaux’s Swift, 5 Killdeer, 3 Bonaparte’s Gull, 6 Gull sp., 1 Great Blue Heron, 5 Turkey Vulture, 1 Bald Eagle, 1 California Scrub-Jay, 1 Violet-green Swallow, 3 Barn Swallow, 1 House Sparrow, 1 American Goldfinch, 1 Song Sparrow, 1 Western Meadowlark, 10 Red-winged Blackbird, 2 Brown-headed Cowbird, 1 Grackle sp.

Thank you to volunteers Stacy Burleigh for leading the walk, our Americorp member Tracy Maxwell for being our greeter of information and logistics, always helpful Board member Bill Fuller, and Lucas Lyle for help identifying and tallying the birds for us.

Participant pictures were taken by Tracy Maxwell. Bird photo of the hybrid Western x Clark’s Grebe taken by Sam Denney.