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
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