Saturday, September 18, 2010

43 Species at MLNP This Morning

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Thunderstorms and the threat of more rain prevented us from following our field trip plans to bird Muskegon State Park this morning. Instead after 8:30 Ken Sherburn led nine of us from the North Muskegon McDonald's over to the Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve to see how drippy it would be.  As it turned out, not very drippy, but very birdy.  

Groups of warblers flitted around various locations all morning, particularly at the northern edge of the park between the bike path and the marsh overlook.  A very cooperative Sora foraged beneath the boardwalk for awhile.  By the end of our walk there were ten of us and the Nature Preserve people treated us to a hotdog lunch -- it was their Open House Day and because of the weather, we were about the only other people to show up!

For the benefit of those on today's trip (i.e., to prevent any disputes between Charlie and Kathryn), here's the species list pretty much in the order we found the birds:  Mourning Dove, Northern Cardinal, American Robin, Blue Jay, European Starling, American Goldfinch, American Crow, Ring-billed Gull, Northern Flicker, Rock Pigeon, Gray Catbird, Swainson's Thrush, Red-eyed Vireo, Black-throated Green Warbler, Pine Warbler, Brown Thrasher, Downy Woodpecker, Common Yellowthroat, White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Nashville Warbler, Black-capped Chickadee, Lincoln's Sparrow, Sora, Great Egret, Mute Swan, Great Blue Heron, Red-winged Blackbird, Mallard, Blue-winged Teal, Double-crested Cormorant, Marsh Wren, Indigo Bunting (female), Scarlet Tanager (female), Yellow-rumped Warbler, Veery, Blackburnian Warbler, White-breasted Nuthatch, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Tennessee Warbler, Canada Goose, Cedar Waxwing and Wilson's Warbler.

No raptors, no Red-bellied Woodpecker!

- Ric Pedler
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