The Stroud Preserve, 30 November 2012
/Yesterday the skies were filled with so many vultures it was difficult to count them. To day, I didn’t see a vulture until I was almost done with my walk and was heading back to the car! Where did they all go? I checked the deer carcass on the way out and there were only 5 birds feeding on it where as yesterday there were over 30.
Actually, I am always quite surprised at the day to day variation in the number of species I see at the preserve. For example, in the month of November I saw 54 species on seven visits to the preserve. The species totals for each visit were 24, 32, 40, 24, 31, 33, and 37. October was even more pronounced. I recorded a total of 97 species on 19 visits to the preserve and my range of daily tallies was a low of 34 and a high of 54.
Today I flushed up a Wilson’s Snipe from the old farm pond. This was only my second observation of this species from the preserve, however, it is probably here more often but overlooked as I don’t scan the aquatic vegetation in the middle of the old pond bed very often. Here is the run down for the day.