Birding on Broadmeade Walk

Better late then never, here's a summary of last week's monthly group bird walk. Last Sunday (Dec 6) 14 of us met at the Parmer Village pond at 8:00 AM and spent over two hours covering about a mile of Lake Creek Trail. While we waited for everyone to arrive we watched a Great Egret, a Snowy Egret, and a Pied-billed Grebe in the pond. And these two Red-tailed Hawks had spent the night atop a nearby cell phone tower:

On our way up the creek bed the birds were mostly hidden, but we did get a brief look at a Sharp-shinned Hawk as it flew by and quieted all the nearby bird sounds. And near the last dam on the creek we flushed this Vesper Sparrow that flew up into a tree and sat still for most of us to see through my spotting scope:

There were not many birds to be seen on the creek so we walked through the strip of woods by the last dam. There were Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Orange-crowned Warblers, American Goldfinches, and we got our closest look at an Eastern Phoebe of the morning:

We continued west along the trail to the first creek crossing in the soccer fields where we found a couple Greater Yellowlegs in the distance and this American Pipit:

Dragonflies are much less numerous this time of year, and I only found one on our walk, this male Variegated Meadowhawk which the group got to see through my spotting scope:

Here's our complete bird list. What a fun morning!