Tuesday, November 23, 2010

CBA Field Trip 11-20-10, Birding at the Dump, or Where's Waldo

11 of us met at the Magnolia Springs Landfill to start our Coastal Birding Association field trip. We were very lucky to be met by Dr. Bill Summerour who showed us the three viewing areas and helped us find the more unusual species among the hundreds of gulls. For the Laurophile(s) among us this was just a matter of scanning and rescanning the gulls; however, for most of us, it was more like a Where's Waldo puzzle, with at least two twists: 1) You really aren't sure what Waldo looks like and 2) Waldo may not even be in the puzzle! We ended our two plus hours at the landfill with a few of us seeing a LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULL and most of us seeing at least one FRANKLIN'S GULL. The best bet area for viewing a FRANKLIN'S GULL at the landfill is in the pond by location #1 as described by Dr. Bill. (see: http://www.pbase.com/swmavocet/mag_sp_landfill_2010)

We then headed north to go to the partially developed Fairhope Falls subdivision off of CR 104 near Silverhill. Birding was a little slow there and it doesn't seem like there are as many sparrows as last year. In addition, most of us were fairly burned out, hungry, or needed a bathroom break after spending over two hours on our Where's Waldo puzzle so we only spent a little over a half hour at Fairhope Falls. However, everyone agreed that the area looked "birdy" and was worthy of further investigation. Keep those Fairhope Falls reports coming Karen!

Magnolia Springs Landfill:
Black Vulture     2
Turkey Vulture 20
Laughing Gull 750
Franklin's Gull 1
Ring-billed Gull 75
Herring Gull 30
Lesser Black-backed Gull 1
American Crow 1
Fish Crow 10
European Starling 20
American Pipit 4
Savannah Sparrow 10
Eastern Meadowlark 8

Fairhope Falls:

Great Blue Heron 1
Great Egret 1
Killdeer 1
Wilson's Snipe 2
Downy Woodpecker 1
Eastern Phoebe 1
Carolina Chickadee 1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2
Northern Mockingbird 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler 15
Pine Warbler 1
Palm Warbler 5
Savannah Sparrow 1
Northern Cardinal 2
Red-winged Blackbird 1

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