Birding on Broadmeade Walk

As I get busier with work I'm finding myself birding the neighborhood less and less. But it's encouraging to me that other folks are birding Lake Creek Trail, and that the monthly group walk is gaining momentum. We had over 20 folks this morning at the Braes Valley trailhead parking lot this morning! Unfortunately the birding was slow. Labor Day weekend can be a great time to see fall migrants, but we saw very few this morning. Highlights were a couple briefly seen Yellow Warblers, an empidonax flycatcher, a heard-only Dickcissel, increased numbers of Snowy Egrets and Killdeer, and a single Mississippi Kite that flew over us near the end of the walk.

Even the year-round residents were sparse. But we did enjoy seeing this pair of Northern Mockingbirds from the parking lot. The bird on the left is a juvenile with a spotted breast and traces of a yellow gape. The bird on the right is its parent and we watched the juvenile beg and get fed two or three times.

Since the birding was slow, we enjoyed seeing a few plants and dragonflies, like this Carolina snailseed vine with its bright red berries:

And this Blue Comanche dragonfly:

Here's our complete bird list.

Here are my iNaturalist observations.
And here are a few more photos.