Field Journal 6 ID

I went birding from 10:45 until 12:15 on April 15th. The weather was quite variable. The temperature was 37 degrees Celsius and the outing started with mostly clear skies with a west wind around 10 miles per hour. By the end of the walk the sky had become almost fully overcast and the wind had increased to about 16 miles per hour. I worked my way down two residential streets then cut across the high school property to the salmon river. The residential neighborhood is mostly made up of small homes but includes a fair number of trees. The school property is a mixture of buildings and fields. I then went to the top of the first of three dams that the Salmon river runs through. There was a large group of Canada Geese and several Herring Gulls. The river pools up and several sand bars and small islands are present above the dam. One the side of the river I came from there is a decent amount of cover in the form of trees and vegetation growing up alongside the edge of the river. On the far side however it is a bit more developed. From this point on the wind picked up steadily and I saw a smaller number of birds. I worked my way out and back through a wooded forest made up predominately red pine trees. I unfortunately did not come across anything besides some Black-capped Chickadees and a few American Crows. As I worked back down into the residential neighborhood I did spy a Red-tailed Hawk circling near the local ice arena which is adjacent to several youth athletic fields. As I finished up the outing a few snow flakes were coming down.

Posted on April 15, 2020 05:11 PM by tsshafer