May Buena Vista Lagoon

Today was the monthly Buena Vista Lagoon birding class and count.  The lagoon is doing very well in recovering from the fire.  All of the area that was burned is now covered in bright green new reeds.  Below is a photo I took of the reeds.

 

There were a lot of hummingbirds buzzing around.  Below is an Allen's hummingbird.

Allen's Hummingbird

There were many terns around today as well.  There were Forster's, Caspian, and least terns.  Least terns are found on the coasts of the United Sates and Mexico and in some areas of the Midwest around bodies of water in the summer.  They are found in northern South America in the winter.  Although they are relatively common in the areas they are found in, they are considered endangered because their preferred habitat and nesting areas are also favorable areas for recreation.  They are particularly vulnerable because their nests are often just eggs on sand or gravel on the ground without much protection.  Least terns can easily be told apart from other terns by their small size, black caps with white foreheads, and yellow legs and beaks.  Below is a least tern flying away.

Least Tern

There were also a couple of birds that we couldn't count on our list.  They were two parrots that flew over the nature center.  Below is a photo of the parrots.  I am not very good with parrots, so I do not know their species.  Whatever they are, there must be a small population of them because I've seen the same kind a few times around the lagoon.

A bird we could count was an ash-throated flycatcher.  Ash-throated flycatchers are found in the southwestern United States in the summer and winter south into Mexico and Central America.  They are fairly large flycatchers with gray heads, chests, and backs, yellow bellies, and reddish-brown tails and wingtips.  They are common in brushy areas, though are sometimes shy.  This was the closest I ever got to one and it only stayed for several seconds.  Below is a photo of it.

Ash-Throated Flycatcher

There was a strange sight at the lagoon today.  There was a great blue heron soaring high in the air.  Great blue herons seldom fly high up, and I've never heard of them soaring.  However, the one I saw today was circling around in the sky as if it were a hawk.  It was very odd.  Below is a photo of the heron.

Great Blue Heron

There was another unusual sight in the same little area.  There was a very large, rather messy-looking nest in a tree that had a bracket fungus growing on the bottom of it.  The fungus was very large, and before, I'd only seen them on tree trunks.  Below is the nest and the fungus.

A somewhat unusual bird (at least for the lagoon), was a warbling vireo.  They are found throughout the United States (except for the southeast) and southern Canada in the summer.  They winter in Central America.  They are small, gray birds with white eyebrows, darker gray eye-lines, paler chests and yellowish sides.  They have warbling songs, as their name suggests.  Below is a photo of the warbling vireo.

Warbling Vireo