Yesterday about 15 people joined me on an extremely foggy morning for the monthly group walk. We met at the Braes Valley parking lot and spent a couple hours covering about 3/4 of a mile of Lake Creek Trail. Bird activity was a bit slow, but we ended up finding 35 species. The most interesting thing about the morning was the fog and what it did to sound. I think because of the increased amount of water in the air, sounds were traveling farther and maybe faster. We could hear birds' wings cutting through the air as they flew over. A group of joggers talking to each other seemed loud when they were still a couple blocks away. And the soccer field crowds sounded like they were right across the creek even though they were over a mile away.
Our birding highlights were at the farthest extent of our walk. In the creek bed between the baseball fields we found a group of 8 American Pipits foraging, a winter resident species of songbird that is often associated with water. And perched on one of the playing field light posts we found a few Monk Parakeets. We heard their raucous calls when some of them flew away.
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