As I mentioned in my earlier post, Sara and I took a trip last month to George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary. We visited on a Sunday afternoon so in addition to the large number of birds there were large crowds of people. I was struck by the amazing number of birds at the sanctuary (for example I saw almost 30 Great Blue Herons in one pond alone). I’m not sure if these numbers are due to the feeding that goes on it the park, the sheer importance of the area as wintering habitat, or some combination of the two. Although I missed out on Snow Geese and Dunlin (I may have to try again there with my new scope), it was a great day of birding. The highlights for me were the Peregrine Falcon, the Northern Goshawk, the Black-crowned Night-Heron, the roosting Northern Saw-whet Owls and the Mallard Wigeon Hybrid shown above.

While I didn’t tick any lifers, I did add 4 species to both my year and my BC lists. I ended up seeings a total of 39 species during the trip, for a full listing see the KMZ file below. You can also see all my photos from the day here on Flickr.