A New Duck and 2 Good Wrens

I spent the morning birding Lake Creek Trail, starting at the Parmer Village development. The weather was humid and cold, but the birding was pretty darn good and I found 51 species. At dawn the new drainage pond had dozens of wild ducks on it. I counted 33 Gadwall, 11 American Wigeon, and 36 Ring-necked Ducks. The Ring-necked Ducks were a first for my neighborhood bird list! (Species 188.) They're not rare, but they are diving ducks, and we just haven't had a body of water deep enough to attract them within the NASWC area until now. I got this picture of 2 males. They were far away and the light was bad, but you can still see the dramatic black and white colors.

I spent a lot of time in the marshy area near the Parmer Lane bridge hoping to see or hear a Marsh Wren or a Sora. No luck, but I did see or hear Lincoln's Sparrows, Song Sparrows, and a single Swamp Sparrow. And the real treat there was finding and photographing this Sedge Wren, a bird I've only seen once before in the neighborhood back in May 2006.


I worked my way upstream to the last dam, seeing many Vesper Sparrows and Savannah Sparrows on the way. In the woods around the area where the creek flows past the dam, there was lots of bird activity including Yellow-rumped Warblers, Northern Cardinals, House Finches, Dark-eyed Juncos, American Goldfinches, and another wren. At first I thought it was a Carolina Wren, a very common bird in the neighborhood, but the eye stripe was not so distinct. As it moved into better view I saw it's extremely short tail and knew it was a Winter Wren, another bird I've only seen once before in the NASWC area. Unfortunately this little guy didn't hang around long enough for me to get a picture.