[columbidae]

Yesterday evening I took a walk over to the local park. McAlpine Park is a large greenway belt in the middle of an urban area of about one million people.

As soon as I entered the park, in the trees surrounding the upper soccer field, I found several male cardinals, spaced out among the trees, all singing in their loudest voices. Further down the hill I found a single female cardinal very deliberately ignoring the males.

As usual, mockingbirds and American robins were abundant. Four killdeer were among the robins on the lower soccer field. Looking up, I saw a turkey buzzard soaring above the tree line. As it descended out of sight, a second appeared, soared over the trees for several minutes before also disappearing below the tree line.

Crossing the creek, I paused as usual at the middle of the foot bridge to look up and down stream. About 20 yards upstream, a red-shouldered hawk swooped down and landed on a branch directly in front of me, just slightly below eye level. Sitting there for about 5 minutes, he gave me the best look I have ever had at one of these birds.

Moving on to the two adjoining lakes, yellow-rumped warblers darted out from the trees to catch insects. An easter phoebe sat in one of the branches bobbing its tail. Five mallards swimming on the lake--four males and a female--followed after me as I walked around the lake. A pair of pied-billed grebes swam peacefully, diving after fish.

On the second lake, which is more marshy, I saw my belted kingfisher perched on a branch overhanging the lake. To my surprise, its chattering call was answered by a second kingfisher nearby, which remained hidden despite my attempts to find it.

Climbing to the top of the hill, I found a downy woodpecker, a red-bellied woodpecker, and a yellow-bellied sapsucker. I have seen the sapsucker, a female, several times this winter, and I know it will be moving up north soon.

Back to the lake, a group of seven Canada geese included one odd looking individual. The body looked like a normal Canada goose, but the neck was brown and thicker than normal, the beak was orange instead of black, and also thicker than normal, it had a pale eye ring, and when it emerged from the water I saw the legs and feet were lighter colored. Overall body size was also larger than any of the other geese. Puzzled, on returning home I consulted my Sibley guide and identified it as a greater white-fronted goose and Canada goose hybrid.

Finally, heading back towards home, I got a special treat. A brown thrasher was perched at the top of a tree next to the soccer field, singing at the top of its lungs, one short musical phrase after another, no to tunes alike.

[LezH]

Lovely stuff Dan.

[Andrew]

Sounds just like my kinda walk, Dan!