Fog and Pollen

I birded part of the T&C playing fields this morning with a plan of going downstream to the Parmer bridge. It was foggy and sunny at the same time, which did some neat stuff with the light. Here's a picture I took of the creek while the sun was still low. The fog also made sound travel better through the air. More than once I heard someone and thought they were 20 feet away. But they were really on the other side of the creek and across a field. Unfortunately another sound that carried this morning was a bulldozer on the D.R. Horton development between the playing fields and Parmer Lane. I was disappointed that this noisy work was going on at 8:00 AM on a Sunday morning.

So I changed my plan and decided to explore some of the undeveloped Amber Oaks business park land north of the playing fields. In the north T&C parking lot I found about 20 Cedar Waxwings and got this picture of one. Between Town and Country and the Jefferson Center there was lots of bird activity. In an open fields I found 6 species of sparrows: Lincoln's, Song, Savannah, Field, White-crowned, and White-throated. There were also House Finches, Lesser Goldfinches, and American Goldfinches eating seeds off the tops of the grass.

Most of the Amber Oaks property is dominated by Ash Juniper trees and their pollen is one of my few allergies. Today the pollen was blowing off the male trees like smoke! I even got a picture of it. Look at that cloud of pollen to to the right of the center tree.