Getting into Summer...only the usual for a few months

Finding new birds in June is rare for me, unless we drive some 400 miles West or more. So we get the usual. Click the photos for a bigger picture.

A few odd female hooded mergansers could be in any pond or lake. They are not nesting.

The last of the sparrows going through.

Spotted sandpipers:

We had a rare pair of Little Blue Herons at Holmes Lake:

Bluebirds nesting

2019 version. Details here:  Bluebird Blog

Just a few days old.

Hungry!

Just a day or two to go and leave nest.

Conestoga Lake

This lake was drained for several years. It is now filling up to a fishing lake again. There is a path now from the North side to walk around the West side. It is not finished. About half a mile is useable for any hikers, the rest of the way to the far jetties is a muddy field which will be a mess in the rain. You cannot get around it, it will be a large mowed grassy field eventually. At the far end you get this:

When the water fills up more, you cannot hike to the South side. It will resemble the North end of wagon train lake. There is a short path on the South side, accessed by gravel road, as well. Looking back to the parking lot, it looks like this:

That will flood as well. Some brush and trees remain on the shore. We will have a bit more access to woodland birds on the trail. I have marked the trail in black. Mudflats are very few.

It was a pretty terrible winter

Lots of snow, bad driving and almost no birds to find for weeks at a time. Some mergansers and other waterfowl are starting to appear. I did find a few horned larks on snowy days.

Mountain Bluebird

A single Mountain Bluebird out from the Colorado and Wyoming edge has wandered far East. Spends its time with our Eastern Bluebirds.

It was a cloudy days so that is as much as I could get as proof for my list. The regular bluebird:

My 127th report of Red-bellied Woodpeckers

Most of them are in Nebraska. I have reported this bird in eBird 127 times.

Today I walked all over Wilderness park at 14th St. I was looking for waxwings but found none. Got some frozen flooded trail over here and had to cut over 150ft of brush to catch another return trail.

The last dot is near the parking lot. Here we see my car. 

I continue:

and further to the East and to the North end of park land:

All I got was woodpeckers and a few juncos and such. Not even a bird for the year list. The map came out to some 4 miles. You can see how trails wrap around the blue ribbon of the creek. There are just a few bridges, one right at the parking lot.

I then went to eBird to find out it was the 127th report of that species of woodpecker.

Same spot on January 13th:

The creek continues North and South of here:

The bike trail goes some 60 miles South to Beatrice, shown here diagonally across the map and crossing 14th street. I use part of it on walks and ride the several miles up and down in town by bike.

2018 and 2019 Winter

This winter with early ice and snow cover took a lot of wintering song birds further South than last year, and November was not as good as 2017. But the ice largely melted and we had things like swans hanging out in Dec and January.

I had one rough legged hawk, but not that many yet.

A glaucous gull spent a few weeks at Branched Oak lake. It looks huge by the ringbill.

Red-breasted nuthatches have been everywhere. This one has been ringed.

And pine siskins are here, not seen every winter but now quite a few.

Harriers are on the prairie all year. This one I found in a fog on Pawnee Lake: