[Birdtalk] Jensen update

[Clay Johnson]

We had to come up to the big city last weekend, and snuck in a trip to AIC
Sunday (May 6).  We can add to Tim Avery's report of a Common tern on
Saturday.about 8:30 Sunday morning we saw what appeared to be a Common tern
(tail shorter than wingtips) perched on some debris in the water east of the
causeway, not far from the mainland end.  We also got to see an actual FLOCK
of Black-bellied plovers (cool), a few Semi-palmated sandpiper among a bunch
of Westerns, quite a few chukars, a half dozen coyotes, lots of bison,
antelope, including some that had waded out quite a way into the water for
some reason (freshwater spring? salt? omnivorous antelope?), and a big North
American striped skunk that was trotting along the north edge of the
causeway at the waterline.  The skunk was probably looking for a dead bird
or two, but it moved along steadily at a good pace.like it was commuting to
the island.

 

We returned home to Jensen Monday evening.  Tuesday we had our first
Bullocks oriole at the hummer feeders.today there are orioles all over.  I
love them in the spring, but I'm tempted to shoot them all every fall when
they clean us out of apricots and plums!  Our White-winged dove stayed
around for three days that I know of, but I haven't seen it since we got
back. We are lousy with Lazuli buntings...at least six males and several
females fighting with each other and the White-crowned sparrows for the
prime spots at the feeders.  By the way, some time during the last two weeks
the last junco moved on (or up the mountain, as the case may be), and now it
appears that all of our White-crowned sparrows are the dark-lored race.
Usually there is more overlap in the spring between when the dark-lored show
up and the white-lored disappear.  Our Spotted towhee pairs have about quit
displaying and are becoming less obvious now.  A lark sparrow just stopped
by to say hello.

 

All for now,

 

Clay and Cliftia

 

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