Birding on Broadmeade Walk

Despite the hot weather, about 15 people joined me this morning at 7:30 for the monthly group walk. And half of them were already there by 7:00! This month's group included mostly experienced birders, so the few beginners had plenty of help finding and identifying birds. As we gathered we enjoyed seeing this rainbow, created by a small rainstorm just west of us:



Despite a small flurry of activity at about 7:15 when I arrived (which included several Dickcissels calling on their way south), overall it was a quiet and still morning. South-bound migrants were moving through the area, but getting more than quick glimpses of them was difficult. Here's one of three or four Great Crested Flycatchers we saw, the only one that presented a photo opportunity:





Other south-bound migrants we briefly saw that I was unable to photograph included a group of 6 Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, a single heard-only Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Yellow Warblers, a single Baltimore Oriole, which only a few of the group got to see, and this juvenile Green Heron which was either already on its way south or soon will be:



Dragonflies were easier to observe than the birds, and we saw Common Green Darners (many), Red Saddlebags and Black Saddlebags, Eastern Pondhawks, a few Blue Dashers and two male Great Blue Skimmers. I enjoyed seeing this female Eastern Pondhawk perched on poison ivy:



We ended up covering about 1 mile of the trail in about 2.5 hours and found 35 species of birds. Here's our complete bird list on eBird.

And here are a few more photos on Flickr.