Tuesday Great Day Birding

I just got home a couple of hours ago and have been going through over 300 images that I took today.  Of course, about 280 of them will be trashed, but I did get a few good ones.  In all, the three of us, Ann, Carl Williams, my neightbor, and I saw/or photographed 43 species of birds.  We never left the San Angelo city limits. 

One of the highlights was to see a Western Grebe in the Middle Concho River.  It is an unusual bird to be seen around here.  It usually abides further west.  Then when we were driving throught Spring Creek Park, Ann pointed up into a tree where a Great Horned Owl was sitting on a branch.  It was back-lit by the sun, but somehow I was able to come up with a barely acceptable print.  Below is a complete list that we reported to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

1. White-crowned Sparrow   12
2. Brown-headed Cowbird   4
3. Bullock’s Oriole   4
4. House Sparrow   10
5. House Finch   14
6. Northern Mockingbird   22
7. Red-winged Blackbird   12
8. White-winged Dove   29
9. Pyrrhuloxia   1
10. Orange-crowned Warbler   1
11. Northern Cardinal   3
12. Golden-fronted Woodpecker   5
13. Mourning Dove   4
14. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher   24
15. Lark Sparrow   10
16. Barn Swallow   8
17. Chipping Sparrow   4
18. Bewick’s Wren   1
19. Black-throated Sparrow   1
20. Turkey Vulture   12
21. Great-tailed Grackle   36
22. Common Grackle   12
23. Vesper Sparrow   6
24. Black-necked Stilt   4
25. Northern Shoveler   12
26. Ash-throated Flycatcher   4
27. Red-tailed Hawk   1
28. Pied-billed Grebe   3
29. Inco Dove   2
30. Curve-billed Thrasher   2
31. Double-crested Cormorant   10
32. Neotropic Cormorant   3
33. Black-crested Titmouse   2
34. European Starling   3
35. American Coot   3
36. Western Grebe   1
37. Great Blue Heron   3
38. Savannah Sparrow   2
39. Yellow-rumped Warbler   1
40. Black-crowned Night Heron   1
41. Osprey   1
42. Eastern Bluebird   1
43. Great Horned Owl   1

I hope you enjoyed this post.  I will have more photos later in the week.  I was somewhat rushed to get this done to publish it today.  Don’t forget to vote in my weekly Bird ID quiz at this link:   https://bobzeller.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/birding-quiz-of-the-week/ or at the “Birding Quiz of the Week”  post on right side of this page.  Results will be published Friday.  Then on Saturday I will have a brand new quiz for you.  I have already written it, and can’t wait for you to see it.