Sunday, October 7, 2007

9 spgs and 1918 marsh yesterday. 10/6‏

I went to Madison early yesterday and stopped by 9 spgs to look for sharp-tailed and LeConte's Sparrows. I arrived at 0700 as the sun was rising and immediately picked out a N Pintail in the first pond. I hung around the pond for a few minutes scoping the ducks and then check the woods for the odd warblers (only Yellow-rumps) then I walked out on the dike. There weren't many ducks around since the local hunters were doing their best to decrease the numbers. I walked down in between the 3rd and 4th ponds where I found white-throated, White-crowned, lincoln's, swamp and song sparrows, Palm, 1 orange-crowned warbler and C Yellowthroats flying around in the willows.
Upon returning to the dike, I ran into Steve Thiessen who was kind enough to show me exactly where the Nelson's sharp-tails were hiding that morning.
To my knowledge, no LeConte's were found. I left 9 spgs at about 0830.

I checked the 1918 marsh around 1:00 and ran into Martha Spencer and her friend (both) from Milwaukee. nothing unusual was present. we got some good looks at Yellow-rumped Warblers and some Immature cedar waxwings.

I returned to the marsh around 5:30 (after my violin lesson) and promptly found the Red-Necked Grebe on the pond. Among the usual Coots, Shovelers, Wood Ducks, Redheads and Ruddys, a Horned Grebe also showed up. The white cheek patches showed up quite nicely. Although, he was too far away to get a decent pic. Even with my scope.

Later (about 6:30), I spotted about 100 chimney swifts heading in for the night down by the Noodles on State street.

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