Birding on Broadmeade Walk

Four folks joined me this morning for the first Birding on Broadmeade group walk of 2015. It was cold, clear, and windy! But the weather was easier to bear than I expected, and we spent a fun couple of hours finding 40 species of birds. Some wild ducks are back. We found Gadwall and Northern Shovelers on the Parmer Village Pond, and we found a group of about 30 American Wigeon on Lake Creek just upstream of the second dam. Here's a poor photo I got of some of the wigeons:

Yellow-rumped Warblers were plentiful, and we found a couple Orange-crowned Warblers too. By the last dam we found an American Pipit and got a brief but exciting view of a Sharp-shinned Hawk diving into the woods. These two American Crows flew in and vocalized a bit while they watched over the creek and us:

Probably the most fun we had was in the strip of woods by the last dam on the creek where we found several little birds staying out of the wind. We found three male Eastern Bluebirds, rare in the neighborhood, which were so tolerant of us that they eventually flew into the trees right above our heads. Here's one of them:

In the same immediate area were half a dozen Cedar Waxwings up high in the trees and a single Eastern Phoebe hunting insects close to the ground. Here are two of the waxwings:

And here's the Eastern Phoebe:

When we came out of the woods and got back onto the trail we spotted another unusual bird for the neighborhood flying over, this Crested Caracara:

Here's our complete bird list. Happy New Year!