The Stroud Preserve, 1 February 2013
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Today the Stroud Preserve was best described as pretty much an avian desert. It was cold, windy and quiet. Very little was moving about at all. My walk today functioned more as a cardio exercise for me than a bird walk. However, there were a couple of patches of sparrow feeding guilds at kept the walk from being a total bird bust. These are usually dominated by White-throated Sparrows and will have other birds mixed in, including tree birds like , bluebirds, nuthatches, chickadees, and woodpeckers. One of these mixed flocks had about 80% of all the individual birds I saw today. It also had a “herd” of cardinals, 38 to be exact. They were all feeding on the open ground with other sparrows and juncos. It was about evenly split between males and females. In my experience, I rare see that many cardinals in one group.
Start time: 9:15
End time: 11:20
Temp: 28°
Wind: brisk to strong from the northwest
Skies: overcast to start becoming clear by midday
Species Total: 28
- Black Vulture – 4
- Turkey Vulture – approximately 20
- Canada Goose – approximately 250
- Red-tailed Hawk – 1, adult
- Ring-billed Gull – 1
- Great Horned Owl – 1, the now regular female on her nest
- Red-bellied Woodpecker – approximately 5
- Downy Woodpecker – approximately 10
- Northern Flicker – 2
- Blue Jay – approximately 15
- American Crow – approximately 150
- Fish Crow – 3
- Carolina Chickadee – approximately 10
- Tufted Titmouse – approximately 10
- White-breasted Nuthatch – approximately 5
- Carolina Wren – approximately 10
- Eastern Bluebird – approximately 25
- American Robin – 3
- Northern Mockingbird – 2
- European Starling – approximately 30
- Eastern Towhee – 5
- American Tree Sparrow – 3
- Song Sparrow – approximately 35
- White-throated Sparrow – approximately 125
- Dark-eyed Junco – approximately 20
- Northern Cardinal – approximately 50, including 38 in one flock. Bird of the Day!
- House Finch – 4
- American Goldfinch – approximately 10