Las Vegas Wetlands Park 12/17/12

Had a free day today and decided to go do a little birding.  Thought about going to Overton to the Wildlife Management Area, but decided against that because of time.  So I decided on the Wetlands Park on the east side of the city.  I've never been there, though I have been to the Duck Creek Trail system, which joins up with the Wetlands.

There really wasn't a whole lot happening out there today, but I did get a few pictures worth looking at.

First, here is one I'm posting on whatbird.com to find out what it is.  I know it is a Flicker and it is either a Gilded or a Northern.  I just don't know which one.  I'm leaning towards Northern, but there are things that point towards Gilded.  So, we'll see what the folks at whatbird.com have to say.  

UPDATE:  After some discussion with others at whatbird.com and doing some detective work of my own I have concluded this is a Northern Flicker.  When I adjusted the brightness and contrast on the second photo I could see some definite red  feathers on the underside of the tail.  A guilded wouldn't have those.

In the first pond I came to I saw this guy just standing on the far shore.  Wasn't doing a whole lot, but it was a bit nippy out today, so maybe he didn't feel like moving much.  Just your average Snowy Egret with all kinds of a royal-looking white feathers.

There wasn't much else going on out there.  About fifty or so Coots swimming around and that was about it.  I do have some photos of a hawk or falcon patrolling the skies over the field just south of the large Wetlands building, but he was so far way and the photos are so fuzzy I can't say for sure what I was looking at.

 If someone wants to take a wild guess at this one, let me know.

UPDATE:  This has been ID'd as a Northern Harrier.  Another new one to my life list.

I also saw this guy swimming around with some of the coots.  Looks like someone took a piece of candy corn and pasted it right on his face.

Also saw a couple of American Wigeons do a quick fly-by, but the photos were quite blurry, so not of much use.

 

That's all for now folks.

Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve 12/10/12

While my sweetie was back home in the Philippines attending the funeral of her father, I decided to get in one day of birding in Henderson.  Wanted to get out there early for the early morning activity, when the birds are just getting up from a night of sleep and are hungry.  But work pushed my departure back a couple of hours and I ended up seeing a lot of waterfowl in the middle of their mid-morning nap.  I did add a few birds to my life list though, so it was a pretty good day.

First bird to come across was this Costa's Hummingbird, sitting in a tree just outside the entrance building.  He just sat there and posed for a couple of minutes for me and a lady that was getting plenty of shots also.

After he took off I went down the path leading along the west side of the ponds and sat at a number of different benches along the way.  But, with the mid-morning slumber going on there wasn't much in the way of "swim-by" activity.  I did find a family of white-crowned sparrows busy foraging in the undergrowth of a patch of bushes.

My next life-list bird was the fairly common Abert's Towhee.  Though they are common and seem to be on everyone's checklists around here, these were the first I was able to visually identify myself.

Out on the far lake I saw about a dozen Buffleheads, but they were so far out that getting a decent photo was out of the question.  Everything came out a little blurred.  They were hanging with a gang of Northern Shovlers and some Ring-billed Gulls.

Continuing back to the north, through the middle of the complex, I came upon about a half dozen Black-tail Gnatcatchers, though I am wondering about that identification.  There are characteristics here that get me to thinking these may actually be Blue-grey Gnatcatchers, but previous listers are listing the former.

After leaving these gnatcatchers I started heading north again, starting to make my way back to the entrance building and parking lot.  I saw three Snowy Egrets that were looking for some tastees along the shore of one of the ponds.  These are some fairly skittish birds, because they don't want to have anything to do with someone walking along the trails and will take to flight rather quickly.  Only got one good shot of one of them on the wing.

Another life-list bird was this Green Heron.  I was very lucky to get this one because he was just doing a quick fly-by and heading to parts unknown in the northern part of the park.  With the photos that I got, there is one with a great reflection in the water that will make a great painting someday.

The last bird to get a good photo of was this Verdin.  She was very busy with building her nest, which is located about fifty feet from the entrance building and she stopped long enough to get one great shot.  Not a life-list bird, but beautiful none the less.

And now, time for the UPDATE:  After posting these photos to whatbird.com the answers have come back.  This first one is just your average White-crowned Sparrow, Junior model.  So nothing new for the life list there.

However, this next turned out to be quite new.  It is an Orange-crowned Warbler.  Oh yeah, I didn't see that one coming. 

Well, that's all for now.  So now these two UPOs (Unidentified Perching Objects) have been Identified.

Veteran's Memorial Park 12/03/12

Took a drive out to the Boulder City with the sweetie to have some lunch and to check out the Veteran's Memorial park in the south part of town.  I'd heard of some good birding there and have seen some reports come through my email with sightings so I figured it might be a good place to spend an hour or so.  And I was right.  I added two more birds to my life list and got some pretty good shots.

My sweetie decided she was going to take some treats for the birds this time, having forgotten every time before this and so she promptly burned a couple bags of microwave popcorn.  And I do mean burned.  When we got to the park, there was already a gentleman feeding about a hundred mallards and coots and so Mila joined right in.  I guess the mallards are not quite as discerning as I am when it comes to scorched popcorn.  They ate it up.  Literally.

First, let's have a look at one of the birds that was already on my life list.  The Double-crested Cormorant.  There were four of them out in the upper lake, one female and three males.  The three males are just starting to show their crests.

Yeah, yeah, yeah ... we heard you the first time!

LUNCH!  Didn't do her any good.
One of the males stole it about three seconds later.

The first new bird to add to my life list was this Common Goldeneye.  There were about half a dozen of them scattered across the lake.  Very nice looking duck and will make a great subject for a future painting.  Especially if I want to do an action shot!

Guess he didn't like having his picture
taken because he was beatin' "feet."

And the other bird to make my life list were these Ring-necked Ducks.  Had to be at least fifty of them around the place.  They were smarter than the Mallards because they didn't want to have anything to do with my sweetie's popcorn.

All-in-all I would say a very good day.

Corn Creek 11/23/12

Had a few spare hours the other day and decided to go and see if there was anything out at Corn Creek Field Station.  I've been receiving checklists from ebird.com lately that showed a great abundance of birds out there and thought I might get lucky.  The last couple of times I've been out that have been complete busts so I didn't get my hopes up.

I walked in past the pond and startled one coot and then walked all the way to the other end of the lower path without seeing one more bird.  I figured this was going to be another wasted trip.  I was about ready to write Corn Creek off as a hotspot I wanted to waste my time with anymore.

Then I went past the spotting scopes and out to the open field and just before the right turn towards the drained ponds I started to see some movement in some of the bushes on the left side of the path.  So I walked past the bushes and just off the path and waited.  And didn't have to wait too long.  The first one to come out seemed to not care that I was there because he was only about ten feet way and doing his business of foraging in the sticks and plants.  Just the bravest little White Crowned Sparrow you ever saw.  Kind of young I would guess because of the brown color of his crown.

He was soon joined by a couple of others, one of which was quite mature due to the very black stripes across the top of his head.   A nice addition to the life list.

I spent a few minutes there, getting at least fifty shots of all of them before venturing on.  There wasn't much to see along the west end of the path, going past the drained ponds and so I started back towards the buildings on the upper path.  I took the detour left up to the top of the hill and walked to the fence line, but didn't see anything.

Then I heard it.  The unmistakeable caw of the American Crow.  I looked around and finally saw him.  About a hundred feet up and a few hundred yards away and coming right towards me.  It was an amazing sight to see him just float right over me, heading east to west towards the setting sun.  Or I should say, the set sun as it had already gone behind the mountains in the west about five minutes before.  So my shots don't show a lot of detail.  Oh, and the reason there are two shots?  Because about thirty seconds behind this crow there was another one, following the same path as the first.

So I was beginning to feel a little better about the day.  The crows weren't anything new to my life list, but the sparrows were.  So I decided not to continue on past the fence line as it was starting to cool down and I was just wearing a t-shirt, so I headed back.

Just before dropping down off the hilltop and back to the upper path I saw it sitting in the top of a dead tree.  I had seen it on the check lists, but had not thought I would see it for real.  Without the light of the sun, which would have back lit him anyway, making it impossible to get any kind of shot, I got this grainy picture of my first Sharp Shinned Hawk.  I took some shots from about halfway down the hill, but they was just black silhouettes.  So I moved down the path and ended up below the upper path on the cement foundation of the old building and was able to get this shot, which when brightened up, provided some detail.  Not the greatest photo, but the only one I was able to do anything with.  One more for the life list.

And the last thing I saw as I was walking across the bridge by the pond was this little feller who came waltzing out of the bushes to see if he could find any treats by the water's edge.  I'm sure I've seen Song Sparrows before, but this one goes on my life list because it is the first time I've actually identified one and made a note of it.

So the trip to Corn Creek wasn't a total bust.  I didn't see half the birds that have been on the checklists of late, but I did add some to my life list and got a little exercise.  And got this one last shot before packing the camera away and heading home.

Hello World! Here I am!

Just a quick post to get things rolling.  Went out to Corn Creek this afternoon with the sweetie and it was pretty much a bust.  Saw a couple of crows and ravens, but only fleeting as they were flying through the trees.  Other than that, there was nothing else going on out there.

And you may see a lot of changes to the Life List parts of this blog over the next few days.  Until I find a method of sharing it that I like, I'll keep looking and experimenting.