date and time:  20 September 2025, from 06:00 to 13:10.

weather:  clear, calm until about 09:45 and then light W-SW breezes about 5 mph, temperatures 55-80 degrees F.

route:  This was a pretty standard survey route- after dropping Chris’s car at the equipment pad, we visited Johnson’s pastures, the area around the Love Shack/Garcia’s swamp. the Accidental Forest down to Middle Breach and up to the former log jam spot on the river, back to the pad, then down Wood Duck Slough to the Tower Pump, then back along the west side road with a detour into Warbler Woods and by the Tall Forest Giant [CAUTION: there’s an active yellow jacket nest under that tree, and yellow jackets notoriously get shorter fuses as the autumn progresses].  At the pad we changed gears to focus on the shorebirds in the flooded fields west of the pad.  After that we exited at the Farm Center gate.

party of two

birds:

greater white-fronted goose-  1

Canada goose-  31

wood duck-  22

northern shoveler-  7

mallard-  12

duck sp.-  8

wild turkey-  1

mourning dove-  15

Virginia rail-  1

sandhill crane-  9

black-crowned night-heron-  2

snowy egret-  1

great egret-  11

great blue heron-  4

black-necked stilt-  24

killdeer-  80

least sandpiper-  55

western sandpiper-  3

long-billed dowitcher-  580

Wilson’s snipe-  32

greater yellowlegs-  25

white-faced ibis-  3

turkey vulture-  40

white-tailed kite-  3

sharp-shinned hawk-  1

Cooper’s hawk-  1

red-shouldered hawk-  6

Swainson’s hawk-  2

red-tailed hawk-  2

American barn owl-  4

great horned owl-  1

belted kingfisher-  1

acorn woodpecker-  12

downy woodpecker-  9

Nuttall’s woodpecker-  8

northern flicker-  6

American kestrel-  2

western wood-pewee-  3

dusky flycatcher-  1

western flycatcher-  4

black phoebe-  16

Hutton’s vireo-  1

warbling vireo-  1

California scrub-jay-  10

yellow-billed magpie-  25

American crow-  8

oak titmouse-  12

barn swallow-  1

bushtit-  40

wrentit-  9

cedar waxwing-  30

white-breasted nuthatch-  18

Bewick’s wren-  8

northern house wren-  20

marsh wren-  4

northern mockingbird-  3

European starling-  15

western bluebird-  4

Swainson’s thrush-  2

hermit thrush-  1

American robin-  20

house finch-  20

lesser goldfinch-  20

American goldfinch-  1 (heard only; Chris)

song sparrow-  20

Lincoln’s sparrow-  3

California towhee-  2

spotted towhee-  30

western meadowlark-  1

red-winged blackbird-  8

brown-headed cowbird-  1

Brewer’s blackbird-  2

blackbird sp.-  50

orange-crowned warbler-  7

common yellowthroat-  6

Wilson’s warbler-  6

western tanager-  15