Field Trip Report for Brickyard Ponds – November 16
There were four of us for our first Brickyard Pond field trip of the fall on a cold and wet morning. We had some light showers but nothing a raincoat wouldn’t stop. Our original plan was to spend the morning on the paved road and then go check the ponds but with it having rained off and on all week the dirt roads were muddy soup. There were hundreds of American Robins with a few Cedar Waxwings among the pear trees at the start of the road as well as an Orange-crowned Warbler. The Yellow-rumped Warblers have certainly arrived too. Sparrows on the other hand were hard to find, we did have Song Sparrows off and on during the day but we had only one or two White-throated Sparrows. The only waterfowl we saw were Pied-billed Grebes. We birded all the way down the paved road and around to the trailer. Foster’s Lane is unpassable by foot or car but the section that goes toward the tracks we could walk. Along this section we had a couple of Field Sparrows and three Rusty Blackbirds! There was also a Kestrel on the wire and a Kingfisher on the pond. We walked back and decided to try and go up the road that leads to Haul Road but about half way we had to turn around. There were lots of Cormorants and Coots and a few Ring-billed Gulls on Big Ditch Pond but not much else. We made one stop on the way back to the meeting location along Skyview Dr. where were found 5 Ring-necked Ducks and a Lesser Scaup as well as a Northern Rough-winged Swallow among some Tree Swallows. It seemed to be a quiet day but by the end of the field trip we had 43 species! Not bad for a cold, rainy mid-November day.
