On Saturday December 16th Troy and I led our usual route for the
Mormon Lake CBC, accompanied by Cecelia and Paul. The day began slowly
at the dam - although we had a Western Grebe - and in our wander about
the observatories and we had few species when we headed out towards Vail
Lake. Troy carried his scope in the hope of a Northern Shrike and
against the odds we found this bird about two-thirds of the way there.
This species is always a challenge and we spent a lot of the count time
on this single bird but Troy's digiscoped photos confirmed the ID. A
flock of 20 quiet Pinyon Jays near Prime Lake, and a flock of Mountain
Bluebirds with a single American Pipit at the far side of Vail meant
that out trek was more productive than often. A group of Common
Goldeneye at Osprey Lookout was the best of our ducks.
Nothing
was open at Mormon Lake Village and so we did not get to sit down to
share our stories, but the other surprise for the count - which had a
count high 63 species - was a total of 5 Canyon Towhees, a rare bird for
the area.
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