[Birdnet] BLACKPOLL WARBLER, Clay-colored Sparrow, SL Int'l Center

[Tim Avery]

It appears the International Center is proving its potential yet again!  This
evening I spent the 2 hours before sunset birding the area, and had several
exceptional finds.

A very bright first winter BLACKPOLL WARBLER was seen just to the north of the
intersection of 5600 West and Harold Gatty Drive.  This is on the opposite side
of the center from where the Prothonotary was seen last weekend. (and can be
reached by taking Harold Gatty to the west from Wright Brothers until you reach
5600 West, or it can be reached from the 5600 West exit on I-80, then heading
north to Harold Gatty.  The bird was seen on the west side of the 5600 West
about 150 feet north of Harold Gatty Drive at around 7:20 pm.

http://timaverybirding.com/photos/sept07/blwa_01.jpg

Back on the other side of the center, at the intersection of Wright Brothers
Drive and Amelia Earhart, was a large flock of spizella, roughly 400 birds,
including at least one, and maybe even 2 very striking adult CLAY-COLORED
SPARROW, in non-breeding plumage.  I was able to get a shot of one on the ground
with numerous Chipping Sparrow.

http://timaverybirding.com/photos/sept07/ccsp_01.jpg

I think this photo is a pretty good representation of a CCSP, looking quite a
bit paler than all the surrounding birds.  Every couple minutes a vehicle would
drive by and scare all the birds into the trees.  Afterwards they would fly
back to the median and on 3 occasions I was able to find the bird again, jsut
by scanning for the very buffy and pale bird.  The reason I think there were
two birds is that at one point, while I was watching the bird on the ground,
another bird flew by that also looked about as pale.  I wasn't able to get eyes
on it unfortunately, and instead kept watching the other bird.

Also near Amelia Earhart and 5600 west was a smaller flock of about 200 spizella
that I opted not to look through in the dark.

Besides these great birds, I also had several new birds for the IC (for short I
guess).

 1 - Townsend's Solitaire
 1 - Peregrine Falcon
 1 - Great Horned Owl
 1 - Red-naped Sapsucker

Cheers

Tim
Salt Lake City, UT
tanager at timaverybirding.com
http://www.timaverybirding.com
http://www.timavery.com