Friday, December 1, 2017

Branched Oak lake

This man made lake, made for fishing and boating, turns out to have enough habitat to be the best birding site in the state, just by a few birds. A larger lake (McConaughy/Ogallala) out West has just a few birds less. At Brached Oak in December and January you can see Bald Eagles.


The lake freezes for a short time but starts to melt in spring and we see more birds travel through from February on.

The levee on the East end offers views of what might be on the lake that day, such as masses of gulls or snow geese. Both ends of the levee have parking lots if you want to use a spotting scope. Going North you take the main entrance (it goes directly to the Marina (part of area 11) and has some indoor toilets part of the year) and you can get to these areas from the Marina to Area 10, mostly by gravel road:


Gulls and shore birds are here. Area 10 has some woods but is fenced off from time to time for grazing cattle in the North end. Area 10 far left parking lot gives views of gulls, ducks, mergansers, cormorants in that NW bay.

Going around the lake you can get to the Western half. Area 8 at the end of a gravel road has brushy areas. I've found Bell's Vireos in the bushes there every year. A sevice road goes North from Area 8, go on foot and avoid getting in private lands to the West. At area 8 some views of the same bay as from Area 10 are available.


Returning to Branched Oak Rd you can get to areas 5 and 6 and Lieber's Point which has offered good views of gulls, grebes and loons for me. It also gives views of ducks in the very middle of the lake. Birders often end up driving between Lieber's point and the Marrina to view the same bird in the middle.

On the South end there are three spots to view the lake. Multi-purpose trails (yes, horse poop found) give some woodland birds in May. You can start from a couple of parking lots just for hikers. Area 14 has a picnic shelter and you can walk fields in October to look for sparrows.

I happened to be doing the area Christmas count with another local birder and we had pretty good luck for December, with one hawk still to be assigned:
http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S41152848