[Birdtalk] ABA birding

[Colby Neuman]

Hi all,

ABA highlights...

Steve Shunk, Steve Ingraham and I led a great group of birders to the
Jordanelle SP area on Saturday June 28th.  We had winnowing WILSON'S SNIPE
and several singing BOBOLINKS along Potter Lane in the Heber Valley.   I
think all of the participants agreed that Heber Valley is a truly beautiful
valley with a spectacular backdrop!

We had a singing YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT on the west side of the river at the
Jordanelle Reclamation area.  A pair of RING-NECKED DUCKS were visible from
the paved road in one of the ponds.  We also watched a SANDHILL CRANE with a
colt forage about 30 feet off the road.

There's a development going in on the hill just above the Jordanelle
Reclamation area.  Although I'm sure much of this scrub habitat will
disappear shortly, we had great looks at singing ROCK WREN, VIRGINIA'S
WARBLER and GREEN-TAILED TOWHEE and I was able to get one participant on a
small flock of BUSHTITS.

Next, we headed to Rock Cliffs State Park where several CASSIN'S FINCHES
were coming to the feeders at the nature center.  A lingering (presumably)
alternate plumage COMMON LOON was foraging at the inlet.

I led 2 groups (consisting of about 25 total participants) into Millcreek
Canyon who had their life or life look or best life look at a FLAMMULATED
OWL last Thursday and Friday nights.

I also met with Chris Wood of ebird.org one evening, and he showed me a
glimpse of the analysis they are beginning to do on the data they are
collecting.  It is truly impressive the trends and patterns they are
uncovering!  So the point of this...expect me to continue to hound you about
using http://www.ebird.org.

It was great making some new friends from around the country, learning from
some fantastic birders and catching up with old friends!  Kudos to Steve
Carr for organizing the field trips and making sure everything ran as
smoothly as possible for the participants and leaders!

Colby
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://secureserver.securesites.net/pipermail/birdtalk/attachments/20080629/f258a5dd/attachment.htm