Field Trip Report for Lover’s Lane – 14 September 2019

It was still hot for the Lover’s Lane field trip as fall hadn’t shows its face yet but four of us still ventured out to Lover’s Lane and the Levee to look for early migrants. It was a very slow day with only 31 species but we did have some interesting things. For the first time in quite a while we saw a Turkey on Lover’s Lane in one of the farmer’s fields. The Mourning Doves are starting to group up for the winter too, if you want to see a LOT of Mourning Doves this is the place to go. There will only be larger and larger flocks through the winter. As we walked along the road just below DSM we heard 2 King Rails calling from the swamp. In the last few years this has become a regular place to find them.

White-eyed Vireos were everywhere! They either had a great breeding year and/or there are a lot of them coming through. We even got really good looks at one that was in the open. The only real migrant we were able to identify was an American Redstart but it was in a flock of small birds most of whom flew over and disappeared. Birds are moving for sure! We drove down to Butler Creek to see if there was anything down that way but it was fairly quiet there as well but on the way back we found one small flock of mostly Blue Grosbeaks with one female Painted Bunting feeding in the grasses along the side of the road.

Monarch migration has started as well as we had a couple of dozen Monarchs feeding on the Bear Paw along the top of the levee.