Dickinson County Easter Birding

Finally had a beautiful spring day in the lakes areas (low 70's and little to no wind!) so I decided to spend a chunk of it birding around the county.

Started off with a trip around Big Spirit Lake, scoping out the lake in various areas and checking out most of the parks and sloughs.  First highlight of the day was hundreds of Double-crested Cormorants in the northeast corner of the lake (Trickle Slough area).  From there I checked out a couple of areas with little activity but I did spot a Common Loon and Horned Grebe from the boat landing at Hales Slough.

Made a pass through the Spring Run Complex without seeing a whole lot of activity.  The duck and goose migration is more or less finished up and while there are still ducks around, the numbers and variety are far from what was being seen a few weeks ago.

While it is disappointing to see the waterfowl migration coming to an end, that only means that sparrows and shorebirds are just showing up and I saw my first wave of them today around Cayler Prairie and Freda Haffner Kettlehole State Preserve.  First nice find was a small muddy pond a mile or so west of Highway 86, along 210th Street (turn west at Oh Shucks Bait Shop).  I found both Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Pectoral Sandpipers and a pair of Wilson's Phalaropes.  This little muddy pond looks very like it could be a very good shorebird spot over the next month.

At Freda Haffner Kettlehole State Preserve, I found a singing Field Sparrow and Eastern Meadowlark and then found Vesper and Savannah Sparrows along the roads near Cayler Prairie.

Finished the day with 62 species of birds and 5 FOY birds.

YEAR TOTALS (as of 4/20/14):

World: 156
United States: 140
Iowa: 101
Dickinson Co.: 93

Dickinson County Nature Center: Osprey Nest Cam

Earlier today after driving by the nature center, I thought I saw something on the Osprey Nest Platform.  I didn't have time to stop and check it out, so I made a mental note to check the next cam website when I got home.

Sure enough, there was an Osprey on the nest.  Unfortunately it flew off a minute or so later and did not appear to return the rest of the evening, so I don't know if the previous Osprey returned of if a different one was just stopping by to check it out.

Here is a screenshot from earlier today (thanks to Berkley Bedell for catching it):

OSPREY NEST CAM

Dickinson County Nature Center

Spring Migration!

While spring has yet to arrive to the Great Lakes area (as I type this it has been snowing for a few hours), the spring bird migration has arrived!

Last week saw large numbers of geese and ducks arrive on the mostly ice-free small ponds and sloughs throughout Dickinson county and nearby areas.  I saw thousands of Greater White-fronted and Snow Geese eating in fields and flying overhead.  I also saw a lifer Ross's Goose just over the border into Minnesota, about half a mile north of Spirit Lake (lake, not town).

While most of the geese have continued on north, the area is still full of ducks.  Most of the bigger lakes are still iced over, but almost every small prairie lake and pond is ice free and most of them are covered in a wide range of duck species.

In fact, so far for 2014, I'm only missing a few of the commonly seen ducks: (Red-breasted Merganser, Ruddy Duck, and Greater Scaup).

Shorebirds: Only Killdeer yet this year.

Sparrows: The usual first arrivals (American Tree and Juncos) plus Song and Fox

Blackbirds:  Lots of Red-winged with a scattering of Rusty Blackbirds.  Many Common Grackle also, but no Great-tailed yet.