Fall: Sparrows and some rarities

I went out to Branched Oak lake this week and found Sabine's gull first thing. In flight they are easy to ID with a sort of W shaped pattern on their back. Then I found some in water, but these would not take flight so no pictures of the W. They are tiny, compared to the Ring Billed Gull.

The sparrows will be here soon enough for about a month. This one is Lincoln's:

The second one is also Lincoln's but not as much of the tan color.

Savannah sparrow

Yellow-rumped warblers are numerous. I never capture the yellow rump.

White-throated sparrows eventually come to your feeder (well, not mine, just juncos).

Harris's sparrow. 

Another Harris's sparrow

Looking for Lesser Black-backed Gull, found by several at Branched Oak Lake, finally saw this only slightly bigger than ring-billed gull. I did not get a picture, so this one I took in Iceland will have to do:

More Osprey are seen than all summer

Songbirds

Brown thrashers arrive in spring and make a lot of noise, some of it  mimicry.

Thrasher

Dickcissel

Dickcissels and meadowlarks (last pic), noisiest birds on the prairie.

We don't have very many nesting warblers, a few more in Omaha, so have to include this Waterthrush as a singer.

Baltimore Oriole. Chatters a lot with offspring, as well as singing.

Wood thrush in our Eastern end.

Red eyed vireo, a noisy bird in much of our country. Song often mistaken for a Robin.

Eastern bluebird, on its nestbox. Male sings, both male and female colorful.

Orange and black American Redstart. Nests in Northern Nebraska along rivers.

One of our more common, but pretty, warblers. Yellow warbler.

Of course we have goldfinches. here sitting in a tree with their enemy, a merlin.

Mostly a dark blob with a tweezer for a bill, the House Wren is bubbling with song, sometimes a bird every 100 feet or so along a path. This is actually at Lincoln Saline Wetland that has a tiny bit of trees, a sort of Nebraska forest.  Also at the wetland. bushes along the gravel road are home to:

Bell's Vireo. Sings all summer. He never looked my way while singing, Some sort of  choke cherry bush.

Wetland Birds

Birds of wetlands other than ducks and shorebirds. This Ibis was near Tamora NE.

There was a group of 6-8.

Coots at Holmes Lake

Snowy Egret, Pioneer's Park

Sometimes you get gulls and ducks, but in shallow water, just the shore birds.

Black-crowned night heron

Sandhill cranes

It's a Whooping Crane. The camera I had was not very good.

American White Pelicans, both pictures. Nests in Dakotas on remote puddles.

Around wetlands, sometimes in the cattails itself, you find Marsh Wren. As well as the sedge wren, which may also nest on drier meadows.

Sedge wren, Frank Shoemaker marsh.

Flying low over wetlands, Forster's tern. Also on migration, we get black tern, no photo located.

Shorebirds

These are best to catch in spring, though there is a fall migration too.

Avocets, godwits

Godwit

Phalarope

A bit distant..yellowlegs.

Try your ID skills

Of the "peeps", 7 inch sandpipers, the ones with black legs are semipalmated sandpipers.

Summer resident in most streams, spotted sandpiper

A good size shorebird, Wilson's snipe are around most of the year, though the nesting birds are in the North half of the state. 

Snipe with migrant Dowitcher and Dunlin. Jack Sinn East area.

Snipe, dowitcher. Most dowitchers are long billed, with short-billed seen for one week in May.

Solitary sandpiper with the bold eye ring.

American Golden Plover nonbreeding plumage, two of the same bird.