Birding the PITS with KatDoc

I got an invitation to go birding at the "Grand Valley Nature Preserve" from Debbie, a teacher who lives nearby and has a permit. And of course, I had to ask my FAVE Cincy birding buddy along (Kathi, aka KatDoc)
If you want to read about my previous visit with Kathi, click here.

Debbie might just become a new birder friend. She is a self-proclaimed "newbie", but fun to hang out with. She put up with tons of chattering and babbling from Kathi and me.
(When it comes to the Flock, we are all like BFF with anyone we meet)

Let's just focus on what we saw (it wasn't much):


The day started hot and humid.
It continued with more hot and humid.
This place is stellar in the winter, just lousy with ring-necked ducks , both scaup species, mergansers, coots and grebes, a bald eagle has visited in previous years...just great stuff.
Summer....is rather boring.

Note: I didn't get a picture of it, but I saw a female Blue Grosbeak. I was the only one in the group who saw it, but I'm sure of the ID. Brown bird, huge conical bill, dark upperparts, paler underparts, darker wings and tail...sitting in a shrubby part of the preserve.
I have poured over pictures, habitat and range maps...LIFER! Number 220~

Grand Valley is rather proud of their Purple Martin colony...they ended last year with 35 nestlings, and this year, they counted 135 nestlings!
Jeez. I can't get one PAIR to nest in my yard.


We saw many, many, many PUMA...the power lines were thick with them. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. Wish I had thought to get a photo of the powerlines. You could see the blackness of all the PUMA from across the preserve.



Kathi's eagle eyes spotted a green heron across the way:

I think this is the first time I have seen one in sunlight. They are usually so skulky.




We kept hearing what sounded like a Field Sparrow with an 'accent'. The typical song of a FISP has a trill that goes up at the end, but this one was trilling down. A listen to the good ol' Birdjam (Hi, Jay!!!) confirmed a FISP.

Kathi goes Off-Road Birding.
(Girlfriend needs a tan)



This single tree, stretching out of the water inspired us to try to make up a haiku for it.
(You know, a poem with the formula of 5 syllables, then 7, then 5?)
It was too hot and muggy, so we never even got past the first line.

But sitting in the cool basement, I might be able to come up with something...

This tree small and wet
Mocks our panting and gasping
We are so sweaty.

:)

Birding with KatDoc is really the Pits (or, If you are birding with OLDER people, remember to bring an ear trumpet)

*I have had a day for the books, y'all. First, I tried to capture the "cute" little orange kitten, and was rewarded by 14 puncture wounds in my right arm. After wrapping it in gauze, Lorelei went out to Stonelick Lake to wade in the water, feel the sand between our toes, and maybe see some birds. We were there 2 minutes, and my CAMERA broke. (The lens won't retract) So, instead of going through the horror of maybe seeing some great birds and NOT being able to take any pictures, we left and went to Best Buy, where I said goodbye to my camera for 2 to 3 WEEKS. (Tip: If you spend more than $200 on anything, GET the WARRANTY)
I am forced to use my very old, very slow camera that has a whole 2.8 X zoom, and 3 whopping megapixels.*


Word to the wise:
If you ever get to go birding with KatDoc, be prepared to see NO BIRDS WHATSOEVER. I have birded with her before, and really have yet to see anything interesting.
Of course, it might not be that there aren't any birds to be found, but instead that we spend so much time laughing hysterically, we are missing them all.
I bet Kathi will beat me to the post, since this camera was made by cavemen. And since I no longer have the software for this camera, I had to up load the pics through Picasa, and then I couldn't find where they had gone to.


We went to That Place. The one that is illegal unless you have a permit. Or, in Kathi's case, you know someone "on the inside".

The trip list, as far as I can remember:
Pied-billed grebes
4 Cardinals
4+ Carolina chickadees
2 Wood ducks
7 billion mallards
2 Least sandpipers
7 billion killdeer (or maybe it was just one, and it was following us)
Some American coots
1 million mourning doves (or MO-DO's, as Kathi calls them)
Black ducks, we think
A flock of Canada geese
Some kind of hawk, a tiny speck on the horizon
Gray catbirds
A whitetail deer (I saw this one, but Kathi missed it because she was too busy looking through her binoculars at a stick)
Rabbits
Frogs
A snake
Turtle heads (presumably attached to turtle bodies, but we weren't sure)


I was actually one up on Kathi here, because I had driven in to the place before, albeit illegally.
Isn't it pretty?

We found a really dead goose.
Since we haven't had any rain, the body was in very good shape (the naturalist said it had been there for a long time). So we pulled a "Julie" and poked and prodded it, puzzling out what might have happened to it. And took 127 pictures of it.
Chimpin'!! Eee! Eee! Eee!

This was our best moment of the evening...a fall warbler. After a lot of field guide digging, we are calling it a Prairie warbler. And Kathi saw a Nashville, but I missed it. I must have been straining to ID a clump of mud on the far shore.

The water is more than four feet below what it was this time last year. Makes for fun rock formations. (The white dot is the reflection of the moon)

God help me, but as I was trying to take a picture of the moon and its reflection, pulling another "Julie" by getting into a really strange pose, Kathi took a picture of me. Can't wait to see that one!
*Just checked Kathi's blog, and she must have gone to bed or something, so check out her version of our excursion tomorrow!
Edit: The Zick has chimed in, and the warbler is a Cape May, not a Prairie. Damn. Woulda been a lifer.