Birds I'm Watching: Spring Lake (10/16/10)

Joined a Madrone Audubon Society group this morning for a quick walk around Spring Lake, in Santa Rosa. It was cold and foggy, but Spring Lake never disappoints. I saw 45 species, the group as a whole about 50.

Birds I saw were: California towhee, Oak titmouse, Bushtit, Crow, Scrub jay, Spotted towhee, White-breasted nuthatch, Acorn woodpecker, Nuttall's woodpecker, Yellow-rumped warbler (18), Dark-eyed junco, Red-winged blackbird, Steller's jay, Canada goose, California quail, Anna's hummingbird, Chestnut-backed chickadee, Downy woodpecker, Belted kingfisher, Townsend's warbler, Red-tailed hawk, Snowy egret, Lesser goldfinch, Double-crested cormorant, American coot, Black-crowned night heron, Green heron (3), Great blue heron, Northern flicker (4), Mallard, Wood duck (3), Pied-billed grebe, Great egret, Cedar waxwing (50), Brown creeper (3), Turkey vulture, Common moorhen, Black phoebe, Greater scaup, Song sparrow, Orange-crowned warbler, Black-throated gray warbler (2), Golden-crowned sparrow, Ruby-crowned kinglet, European starling. (Numbers indicate unusual numbers for a given species.) I got an excellent shot of one of the Black-throated gray warblers--a very handsome bird (above)--and of a Golden-crowned sparrow. Ditto.

For more information about bird watching in Sonoma County, see my Website Sonoma County Bird Watching Spots