At the Cosumnes River Preserve yesterday I went behind the Farm Center gate, and I enjoyed pretty good birding. The early successional woods and brush had much more activity than did the oak woodland. At the end of the morning I visited the shallowly flooded fields along Desmond Road. Better finds included the following:
semipalmated plover- 40
lesser yellowlegs- 1
bald eagle- one adult flying over the Triangle Pond, another in the nest (now mostly occluded by foliage)
acorn woodpecker- 2
western wood-pewee- 4 (FOS)
Empidonax- zero
Cassin's vireo- 2
warbling vireo- 17
ruby-crowned kinglet- 1
Swainson's thrush- 5
American pipit- 2
yellow-breasted chat- 1 (FOS)
orange-crowned warbler- 6
Nashville warbler- 1
MacGillivray's warbler- 1 (FOS)
common yellowthroat- 20
yellow warbler- 5
Audubon's warbler- 2
black-throated gray warbler- 2
Townsend's warbler- 4
hermit warbler- 5
Wilson's warbler- 30
unidentified "buzzy-songed" warbler- 8
western tanager- 7
lazuli bunting- 4
Today I did this month's Lost Slough bird survey. I found 88 species. The highlight was working through loads of shorebirds, beginning before sunrise on bare, moist soil and short grass. I turned up the following charadriiforms:
black-necked stilt- 42
American avocet- 23
black-bellied plover- 1
killdeer- 15
semipalmated plover- 89
dunlin- 1
least sandpiper- 240
western sandpiper- 650
peep sp.- 220
long-billed dowitcher- 108
Wilson's snipe- 1
spotted sandpiper- 1 (FOS)
greater yellowlegs- 7
red-necked phalarope- 3 (FOS)
Caspian tern- 1 (FOS)
Forster's tern- 1
A pair of peregrines spent about 10 minutes interacting over the ponds west of Franklin Blvd., possibly courting. The tour of perimeter trees and brush was likely limited in its findings by the stiff wind after about nine o'clock. The highlights there were these:
