Thursday, January 27, 2022
Lois L. and I decided to explore the Lake's concrete trail starting about where our Community Birders stopped the previous day. To see the sidewalk extended so far blew my mind. It runs all the way into Mesa to the Riverview area.
Walking only 1.5 miles east before turning back, we saw plenty of birds in the hot spot Marsh area.
After returning to our starting point, shedding outer warm jackets, we continued on to Tempe Town Lake.
OSPREY were active there, too, but sometimes watched from high above the water.
Although we missed the rafts of mergansers the previous day, we were thrilled to see two large gatherings of COMMON MERGANSER. One raft had predominantly female ducks; the other, farther west and north, were predominantly male.
One Coyote and two Javelina were spotted at separate places along the north bank of the Lake, too distant for photos. I always like to see the wildlife subsisting in urban areas.
Leaving the Lake, we stopped by Selleh Park in Tempe. In past years, a pair of WOOD DUCK could be found swimming there with mostly MALLARDs and Domestic Ducks (mutt-ducks). Then, a couple years ago, I took a small group of birders there to see the drake and hen Wood Duck, but they weren't there.
True, they have wings, but they had been so reliable, I was quite disappointed. Thus, the reason for stopping today: has it or both returned? We did see the Drake WOOD DUCK swim out for some treats when a woman arrived with her child, who was tossing corn to the waterfowl. Apparently, the hen was not in residence there today. How beautiful!
Leaving the park, we spotted INCA DOVE and a VERMILLION FLYCATCHER (adolescent male).
Altogether, we walked four (4) miles on another beautiful day in the company of some beautiful birds.
As usual, click on the eBird reports below to see the entire list of species we reported.
View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S101530824
View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S101532652
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