The Region
Featured Bird
White-faced Ibis:
Look for this dark wading bird with a long, down-curved bill near shallow water and sloughs. Look especially in the Republican River and Rainwater Basin regions of the Chicken Dance Trail.
Recent sightings and notes of interest
Check here frequently to see what birds are being seen along the Chicken Dance Trail. Click here to add your own sightings.
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Posted By: Don Brockmeier
I have notice numerous dead birds on golf courses, vacant lots, and while walking trails. I had dead one in my bluebird house. I am wondering if West Nile is doing a number on them.
Date Posted: 7/10/2007
Posted By: Betty Sayers
We were placing geocaches at Hanson wpa located approximately 11 miles north of Curtis on a mid morning last week. We heard dicksissels singing, clay colored sparrow chirping, meadow larks warbling. We first spotted the eastern kingbird and a least flycatcher. The capstone of the day besides the ethereal beauty of the canyons was the sighting of a ferruginous hawk as it slowly circled overhead.
Date Posted: 6/28/2007
Posted By: Nancy
Bobcat sighting.
I was walking this morning on the road to Ernie's old farm house. I always like walking after a rain because I can easily look for wild animal tracks. I see the usual: deer and raccoon, the occasional coyote and what I assume to be an occasional bobcat track. The road was mudpacked so there was not the usual noise of gravel crunching. As I turned a bend about ten yards in fromt of me I saw what at first looked like the biggest house cat I had ever seen coming out of the tall grass. It stopped and looked at me and my mind clicked - that was no house cat; it was the bobcat! Big ears, dark coat. He quickly turned back into the tall grass. I paused hoping it would return. I walked on past and turned to see if he would continue crossing the road, but I failed to see him again. I am sure I will be looking for him on every walk, but most likely will never see him.
Date Posted: 6/20/2007
Posted By: Nancy
Mink said hello - I was fishing on my floating dock around 6:30 the other night when I saw a little dark creature bounding along the north shore rocks. It was the mink. He came on around the corner along the walkway right toward me but soon slipped into the water, swimming under the walkway to where I think he lives - in the rocks right where the raft is tied up. I will start leaving him my dead minnows or dead fish. Plum Creek Canyon Reservoir.
Date Posted: 6/15/2007
Posted By: Diana Lambson
It has been a birdy spring in our yard. Not so many sparrows this spring as usual but lots of robins, red-headed finches, two pair of cardinals, noisy, robber baron, black birds all over the place, one big grey Camp Jay several weeks ago, Lots of doves, and just yesterday I saw what I thought was a yellow finch. However, Betty Sayers told me she thinks it may have been a warbler. I believe it has set up housekeeping in a very old flowering Bradford pear tree on the west side of our house.
I am a very beginning bird watcher. Actually I don't even have a book yet. I can identify birds I have seen all my life and that have been identified for me over the years. Otherwise I am clueless until a more experienced bird watcher gives me a hint.
btw--John T. thanks for helping me remember the name of the big, yellow and black butterflies. They were so plentiful where I grew up and I loved them as a child but the name had slipped to the back of my mind, like so much else these days. I saw a big yellow swallowtail a few weeks ago; just a glimpse as it flitted through the yard on its way somewhere else.
I am looking forward to our annual visit from a red-headed woodpecker that seems to favor our native elm and walnut trees, and our t.v antenna tower. (Figure that one out.) We also are hosts to periodic visits of a couple of blue jays. They are such bullies though. I almost wish they would visit someone else.
Enough. Peace, Luv and Peanut Butter Pinecones to you all.
Date Posted: 6/13/2007
Posted By: John Thorburn
I haven't had any particularly unusual bird sightings lately, but I have been enjoying the particularly abundant butterfly "migration the past few weeks. I don't prune my privet hedge until after it blooms, because I love the smell of the blossoms, and because they attract butterflies (and I don't like to prune my hedge any more often than I have to). We have had plenty of Red Admirals and Eastern Tiger Swallowtails, along with a few Giant Swallowtails. The Monarchs started to arrive right after Memorial Day. My daughter and I even spotted and temporarily detained a "rare" Dark Phase Eastern Tiger Swallowtail last week.
Date Posted: 6/12/2007
Posted By: Don Brockmeier
Dickcissel-8 miles south of Eustis is a field of clover and it is alive with dickcissels calling to each other. To identify, the Dickcissel is similar in pattern to the meadowlark but is much smaller with a thicker bill. Its call is Staccato sounding dick-dick-dick-cissel.
Date Posted: 6/12/2007
Posted By: Betty Sayers
A birding and ecotourism trip to Haigler awarded me with sightings of burrowing owls, great horned owl, prairie larks, horned larks, and sparrows that I have yet to identify. We stayed at The Lodge B&B. George & Carol Peterson provide excellent accomodations: www.windmillangus.com/lodge
So many burrowing owls we were able to notice burrowing owl behavior.
Date Posted: 6/11/2007
Posted By: Nancy Herhahn
Cedar Waxwings have comandeered my oriole birdfeeding station. I set up an orange and grape jelly feeding board on the second floor balcony. Baltimore and Bullocks orioles at first were frequent visitors. Then a cedar waxwing showed up, then two, five, seven, even a dozen at a time! The little bandits gorge on the jelly.
Plum Creek Canyon Reservoir
Date Posted: 6/7/2007