Townline Road feeders - Photo by Tom Schultz
We were pleased that this was a relatively mild day for this field trip, with the temperature starting around 25 degrees when we met at the gas station in Bancroft at 8:00 AM. There was a moderate wind blowing from the southwest, but the mild temperature made it quite tolerable.
Following check-in (26 birders were present) and distributing radios for communication between the cars, we departed and headed west into theBuena Vista grasslands. We initially took Hwy. W, Taft Road and Lake Road. A few Canada Geese and a Mallard flew past us, and we spotteda few American Crows, Horned Larks, American Tree Sparrows and European Starlings along the way, but many places appeared pretty quiet.
We turned south on Townline Road and soon spotted our first Rough-legged Hawks of the day, and as we were to see, there were many more to come. We encountered a few more Canada Geese and Mallards along the way, certainly due to most of the ditches in the area having mostly open water. We worked our way south on Elm, Taft, and Mill Roads, and were able to add Pileated Woodpecker, Red-tailed Hawk, and American Kestrel to our day list, soon followed by Blue Jay, Red-bellied Woodpecker and Red-breasted Nuthatch.
American Kestrel - Photo By Jeff Baughman
Back to Townline Road, we headed south and stopped by a couple of houses that had bird feeders. They weren’t overly active, but we found Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers, Black-capped Chickadees, both nuthatches, American Tree Sparrow, and Dark-eyed Junco.
While standing and watching the feeders at the second house, a Sharp-shinned Hawk suddenly flashed quickly past a few of us and landed briefly in an oak tree in the yard. Unfortunately, it didn’t sit there for long, when it flew past the house and landed in a large pine tree. The looks at the hawk there were not ideal, due to some oak branches in the foreground, but at least it sat there for a while so many of us could get a look. A little later we had glimpses of it as it flew to the north.
Rough-legged Hawk - Photo by Tom Schultz
Continuing down the road we added Common Raven, and then a group of Wild Turkeys along Hwy D. Working our way to Leola Marsh, we added more looks at Rough-legged Hawks and Common Ravens. In the vicinity of Owen Rock there was a large group of American Crows present (at least 125) in the fields, and more ravens in the distance, as well as a couple of Bald Eagles. The group got very excited when we thought we saw a Greater Prairie-Chicken way out in a field, but unfortunately we never managed to get good enough looks to confirm it, and the bird disappeared.
At Leola Marsh, we traveled on Apache Avenue, Sixth Avenue and Archer Road, hoping to find a Red-headed Woodpecker, but couldn’t spot one. A few Red-bellied Woodpeckers were present, as well as a Northern Harrier and several more Rough-legged Hawks, but we were unsuccessful in finding any Red-headed.
From there we continued working south and east on several roads, but unfortunately nothing new was added. We concluded the field trip near Hancock, where we collected radios and called it a day close to noon. Thanks to Jeff Baughman and Dan Belter for co-leading this field tip. The weather had been nice, but sadly we had missed some of our target birds – which seems to happen often at Buena Vista!
