There were a lot of birds out at the ponds this past weekend, and, strangely, no people other than me.

The ducks were mostly hard to distinguish, but in closely inspecting photos I found them mostly to be Cinnamon Teals. Toward the end of the outing I saw a large flock of hundreds of ducks take off in the distance, and I believe they were mostly Mallards but I can’t say definitively. There were also many Yellowlegs, and again in looking at photos most seem to have been Greater Yellowlegs, but one I got photos of is a Lesser Yellowlegs, a new lifer!

There was also a Peregrine Falcon perched in a dead tree (also a new lifer!) who shrugged off a close aerial pass from a Northern Harrier.

Two other new lifer species that may have been present were Western Sandpiper and Short-billed Dowitcher. The sandpiper photos I got looked to mostly be Least Sandpiper, with greenish/yellowish legs, but I couldn't tell if the darker-legged ones were actually Western Sandpipers or just Leasts with legs that appeared dark in photos. The Merlin app on the phone identified a Short-billed Dowitcher call but only once and none of the photos I got of Dowitchers were anywhere near good enough to distinguish between Short/Long-billed.

I also got some photos of a Yellow-headed Blackbird I'm happy with, some of which include a very vocal youngster.

These photos are © 2022 Phil Thompson, all rights reserved.

My "birds in review" collages can be found here.