Well, here's what happened. A quick recap:
First day I went to Spring Creek Prairie. It was a bit different than I expected. In some directions all you can see is tallgrass prairie without any man-made junk in view, which is very refreshing. Waving grass, rolling hills, big skies. Nice. Sparrows were the big score - I saw about 6 species of sparrows, including Harris' and Lincoln's. There was a nice spot along the creek just across the bridge from the visitor center where I stood for hours and watched the activity in the bushes on the far bank. Otherwise, the usual selection of other common stuff - woodpeckers, gulls, thrush, phoebe, jays, goldfinch, etc.
Afterwards I stopped at Pioneer's Park nature center, but it was fairly dead except for the huge flock of blackbirds, grackles and starlings. Never went back.
Next day I went to Shoemaker wetlands area on North 27th along Little Salt Creek. Lots of swallows and savanna sparrows. Occasional flocks of red-wing blackbirds and robins. The small woods near the parking lot had flickers, woodpeckers, phoebe, robin, etc. Occasional predators soaring by overhead. The wind really blows hard in this flat area, so I left after about 3 hours due to wind fatigue. No tiger beetles on an overcast day. Plenty of birds, and finally a good photo of a savanna sparrow, so I was happy. No wetland birds were evident that day.
After that I drove by Oak Lake Park and stopped to photo grebes on the lake. There were also herons, egrets, coots, etc, but the wind was blowing even harder here and I had enough of that for one day. There was also a promising looking wetland area nearby, across the creek from the lake.
To get out of the wind I went to where Van Dorn Street passes over Haines Branch, and walked down Haines Branch. Lots of common birds both in the fields and in the trees over the stream.
Next day was really rainy, so I only got 1 hour at at Wilderness Park at Old Cheney. It was the most productive hour of my whole trip! 4 kinds of warbler - yellow-rumped, orange-crowned, black-throated green and Nashville, I think. Carolina wren. Kinglets and chickadees and all the other usual stuff you'd expect to see.
Next day I went to Wilderness Park down by Rokeby Road. It was fairly quiet, and I saw a small number of common species. Less canopy than up by Old Cheney - more mixed habitat. After a few hours I went back to the Old Cheney part of the park, but aside from the Carolina wren it was also quiet that day. It was a very cold morning.
So - Spring Creek Prairie was definitely worth half a day, but patience and good positioning was required to wait for things to pop out into view. Shoemaker wetland was good for me, since I was very interested in filling out my sparrow pix on this trip. It was also interesting to see the tiger beetle habitat. Wilderness Park was mixed bag, but definitely worth a visit for forest birds. One place I wanted to visit but never got to was a wetland on the Northwest side of town...I'll have to look up the name when I get home.
