Winter to Summer

It had been three weeks since I've birded Lake Creek Trail, so this morning I spent a couple hours starting at the Braes Valley trailhead and making my way to the eastern-most creek crossing. It was exciting to see signs of transitioning seasons from winter to summer. There were increased numbers of some winter-resident birds like Lincoln's Sparrows and Cedar Waxwings. Here are a couple photos I took of a few of about 100 Cedar waxwings perched in the top of a willow tree:

Winter resident and north-bound Greater Yellowlegs and Least Sandpipers were in the creek bed. Here are a few of the Greater Yellowlegs sporting their breeding plumage:

Two returning summer residents I saw were a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron in the creek bed and a Broad-winged Hawk that briefly flew over the footbridge. Here's the Broad-winged Hawk:



And speaking of hawks, I was happy to see that a Red-shouldered Hawk is once again sitting on a nest in the line of willow trees between the Braes Valley parking lot and the creek. They have nested here for the past few years.

Dragonflies and Damselflies have started to return too, and I was excited to see a Pale-faced Clubskimmer land, which allowed me to get this photo:



This species hunts on the wing, so it's difficult to get opportunities to photograph it.

And here is one of the many colorful damselflies we have in the neighborhood, a Blue-ringed Dancer:



Here's my complete eBird list.