Yesterday I had my museum group on an outing to Jackson SP/Res., which I rather expected would be rather dull. Not so much! On our way into the park, we got off to a great start with a lot of the usual suspects (meadowlarks, horned larks, but no longspurs) plus a nice male harrier and a prairie merlin. Once in the park, our acute restroom plans were thwarted (curses!) by a shutdown of the visitor center restrooms by leak (pardon the mixed verbiage!), so we headed down to the facilities by the marina. While there, we walked out onto the long rock pier and scanned the lake. We found two loons, one of which was quickly ID'd as a Pacific. The other was somewhat problematic, and we were viewing from a considerable distance. However, in the end, we decided that the short slightly upcurved bill eliminated the competition, and we called it (with a decided lack of confidence) a red-throated. If anyone wanders out there, a second opinion would be welcome. That is, however, my story, and for the moment I'm stickin' to it. The other area of particular interest was the inlet canal trail, where we had flocks of white-crowned (alas, no white-throated or Harris's), American tree and song sparrows, one late Lincoln's, and lots of juncos. There were 100+ waxwings and equally large numbers of robins working the junipers, a kingfisher, a great horned owl, redwings and a smattering of ducks and coots. The most interesting bird here was a very late solitary sandpiper. We also had flyovers of two middlin' sized flocks of snow geese, totalling maybe a hundred individuals. While were making our unsuccessful restroom foray at the visitor center, a fellow brought in a recently deceased (with no sign of the cause of said deceasement) ferruginous hawk. While unfortunate, it gave us a terrific opportunity to look at the plumage details of this magnificent raptor.
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