Yesterday, in the morning, I checked the sewage ponds at Gridley. There were small flocks of Brown-headed Cowbirds, European Starlings, and Common Grackles flying around the West ponds. As I was edging around the Southwest pond in my car, I noticed a Wilson's Snipe. I had to back up and drive around to the East side of the pond to get in a position from which I could get some shots of the snipe with the sun behind me.
When I got to the East side of the East pond, there were several American Pipits on the rocks. Below are a few photos of one of the buffiest of them.
I have seen a nice little variety of migrating songbirds on the rocks over the past month, including many Palm and Yellow-rumped Warblers and Savannah Sparrows. This Palm Warbler was present on September 21.
The Yellow-rumped and Palm Warblers below were there on September 24.
This Northern Shoveler, though not a songbird, was present the same day.
In spite of this Cooper's Hawk, sneaking around, there were Yellow-rumped Warblers everywhere on October 3. Here is the Cooper's Hawk.
And here are the Yellow-rumpeds. They seemed to favor the South side of the middle pond.
Here is a photo of another Cooper's Hawk I saw just down the road from the sewage ponds on September 25.
American Pipits can be seen frequently at this location around this time of year. Here is one I photographed this year on October 12.
And here is another I photographed at the same location exactly one year before I photographed the bird above--on October 12, 2011.
On October 12 of this year, I also saw these Richardson's Cackling Geese. They were only around for a couple of days.
I have not seen many Vesper Sparrows at the ponds this Fall like I did last year, but as I mentioned above, I have seen numerous Savannah Sparrows on the rocks. Since I have not put much effort into photographing them this year, I will post a few photos I took of them in September and October last year at the same location.
No comments:
Post a Comment