The First Rule of Birding (okay, my rule but…) is bird the parking lot. After signing in, the 20 of us moved to the edge of the parking lot, and found Red-winged Blackbirds, Spotted Towhees, Golden-crowned Sparrows, American Robins, and European Starlings. We were hoping for some Brewer’s Blackbirds as they are usually around, but not today.

Along the trail from the parking lot, a Northern Shrike was spotted in a shrub near the beach. A Northern Flicker showed nicely for the folks at the head of the group at this point too. As we turned the corner of the path, the shrike appeared again in a small tree right in front of us. More Golden-crowned Sparrows, Song Sparrows and Spotted Towhees accompanied us as we moved along. Black-capped Chickadees and House Finches bobbed around in a tree beside the path. Heading up the south branch of the Raptor Trail, three Northern Harriers, including two males, circled the fields to the southwest. A Red-tailed Hawk soared by soon after and we talked about how to tell the difference between the two raptor species. At this point a number of duck flyovers occurred, possibly stirred up by the Bald Eagle we spotted a little later. Flocks of Northern Pintails, Mallards and American Wigeons passed over in various sized groups.

We turned toward the beach, heading down the other fork of the Raptor Trail and then along the boardwalk. We had hoped for a rail here, but we struck out on this bird. Hiking along the dyke trail towards the 12^th Ave. entrance we saw thousands of American Wigeons out on the ocean. We counted about 7,000. We were hoping for Brant as they are usually present off the pump station, but there were none to be seen. There were lots of ducks though. Out on the water with the huge raft of wigeons were hundreds of Scaup (hard to tell which species at that distance), hundreds of White-winged Scoters, a few Bufflehead, some Common Goldeneyes, several Horned Grebes, some flying Short-billed Gulls, and scattered flocks of Dunlin. We headed out to the beach to look for Sanderlings foraging between the waves but there were none to be found. However, there were four Brant flying south!

We finished up the day with a go around talking about folks’ favorite part of the day and their bird of the day. The Northern Shrike and the Northern Harriers were deemed the stars of the day. A few folks remained to chat for a bit, and at that point a female Mountain Bluebird popped up on the rope fence chasing bugs. From where we stood we were able to get good but distant views. Too bad most folks missed this beauty, but it was a nice wrap for the morning walk.

Our eBird list is here https://ebird.org/checklist/S285848053

Mountain Bluebird at Centennial Beach