Sunday, October 21, 2012

Irvine Nature Center



A gorgeous day for birding, and 16 of us set out birding Irvine Nature Center on a Chesapeake Audubon field trip. One of the best highlights happened at the beginning--a Merlin looking to be chowing down on a bird at the top of a distant tree. The variety of birds was, I think, a little less than what it has been of late, but still a nice bunch of birds, some, the expected, in great numbers. 8 sparrow species, including a few Fox Sparrows. We enjoyed the music of a huge thick collection of Goldfinch we ran into at the end. One bush afforded us very long and very close studies of both kinglets (and their crowns) and yellow-rumped.


Some of the birds:

Black Vulture  6
Cooper's Hawk  1
Bald Eagle  1
Red-shouldered Hawk  1
Killdeer  1
Eastern Screech-Owl  1
Hairy Woodpecker  1
Merlin  1
Blue-headed Vireo  2
Red-breasted Nuthatch  1
Brown Creeper  1
Winter Wren  2
Golden-crowned Kinglet  12
Ruby-crowned Kinglet  40    
Cedar Waxwing  22
Black-throated Blue Warbler  1
Palm Warbler  15
Yellow-rumped Warbler  15
Fox Sparrow  3
White-crowned Sparrow  8    
Purple Finch  12   
Pine Siskin  18