April 21, 2016

On Thursday April 21st it was about 70 degrees and super sunny. We went out around 3 PM to the woods behind WDW dorm on Redstone near the golf course. I just got new binoculars, and I was excited to try them out. As soon as we walked outside we immediately heard a red-winged blackbird, but could not find it. We walked through the small path in the woods and immediately saw a white-crowned sparrow that was just walking on the path. It flew away as we got closer. We then got to the golf course and kept hearing a bird noise that I could not identify (and am still trying to figure out). Then I heard a black-capped chickadee in the distance and walked back into the woods. We stood on the path for a bit and saw a chickadee through the binoculars. Then we saw a robin on the path ahead of us and it was walking around. We kept standing on the path and a bird flew right by and I grabbed my binoculars to try and see it closer but it landed near and I could see it was a yellow warbler and it flew away very quickly. We then hear another chickadee and spotted another robin and decided to go sit on a rock and keep listening/looking. We saw two mallards come up the hill from the (really nasty) pond that is near redstone and waddle over to the tiny stream that was near us. There was one male and one female. They sat in the stream and seemed to be bathing or looking for food possibly. We spotted a bird on a tree kind of far away so I looked through my binoculars and saw it was a woodpecker. I determined it to be a downy woodpecker as it flew/walked on the tree and pecked at the tree a bit. It stayed on the tree for a long while. As we were about to leave we heard a common grackle in the distance but could not spot it. Throughout this entire time we either heard or saw ring-billed gulls flying in the distance. The mallards were still in the stream as we left. On the way out we heard another bird that I could not identify by sound and also could not spot. It was a beautiful day for birding and hopefully I can figure out with the two birds are that I heard!

Posted on April 22, 2016 05:26 PM by