I decided to hit North Park again. This time of the year is the middle of the song bird migration and the start of the mating season for those that nest in this area. Because of this activity, I figured that North Park would give me the best opportunities in the amount of time that I had.
I pulled into the parking area at Marshall Lake just after sunrise. While I was setting up the digiscope I saw that there were swallows flying all over the surface of the lake, they were catching an early morning hatch of mosquitoes. I stopped on the road side of the footbridge to the island to watch. I noticed that the swallows would buzz around the lake for a while then stop to rest of the railings of the footbridge. I decided to just wait for them to come to me.
While I was waiting for the swallows to rest on the bridge railings I was able to get a few shots of a pair of Grackles at the top of a tree on the island and also pictures of a Yellow Warbler in another tree.
The swallows finally came to rest on the bridge railings. I was able to get a multitude of pictures of these little birds. I was excited because these birds rarely stop for a rest like this.
After shooting the swallows I made my way across the bridge to the island. Halfway across the bridge I noticed that a goose was sitting on a nest on the island near the bridge landing. This could very well be the same goose on the same nest that I got pictures of last year. I got some great pictures then so I snapped another handful for this year.
I finally finished crossing the bridge to the island. On the far side of the island is a fallen tree that I like to call “The Perch”. Birds will fly from all around the lake to perch and call from this tree. I’ve gotten more pictures of more species of birds on this tree than I have anywhere else I have been and this morning was no different. When I first got to that side of the island a Red-Winged Black Bird was calling his heart out from one of the top branches of “The Perch”.
As I was watching for activity on The Perch a wood duck swam from the feeder stream at the North end of the lake to the nest boxes across the lake from me. You just know that I had to snap some pictures of this guy too.
As I saw when I first arrived this morning, the swallows were still buzzing the surface of the lake. I couldn’t see the footbridge from where I was so I can’t be sure if they were still stopping to rest there or not. They were however landing on The Perch. I was lucky enough to get good pictures of both Tree and Rough-Winged swallows as they rested on the limbs of the dead tree.
It was a good morning and it was getting close to the sister-meeting time. I decided to call it quits for the day and move on to other chores.
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