Well, obviously I’m falling down on the job – I didn’t realize it was National Trails Day until the end of the day yesterday! Oops! The only walking I did yesterday was a short 20 minute hike in the rain with a Barred Owl (one of the raptors I care for) on my wrist. It was a nice walk, but short and uneventful. For those of you who did get out on the trails yesterday, I hope you had a wonderful adventure and enjoyed your day!
To make up for missing Trails Day just a little, I’ll relay this morning’s continuation of the prairie bird point count. We are surveying three areas: an existing prairie, an area currently under prairie restoration, and a meadow. Friday we surveyed the prairie being restored, and today we walked the existing prairie. (For those who aren’t into birds, bear with me through this survey, which only has one more point count to go.)
Today we saw and heard pretty much a repeat of the species we saw and heard on Friday, with the addition of a Savannah Sparrow. We thought we’d heard one on Friday, but couldn’t confirm it…today I got a photo of it. The photos below are a little sampling of the birds we saw today:
We also found, in the new prairie, an interesting angled and split rock, which I believe is a glacial erratic. The symmetry of it is just fascinating to me:
Well, that’s it for today. We are planning to do our final point count sometime this week, and I’ll let you know how it goes! In the meantime, I hope you have a great week!