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.