Feb 17 Birding

It was warm and sunny two days ago. We took a quick spin around the Birding Centre in search of any new species.

Some of the 'usual suspects' were there.

Spotted Sandpiper

Great Blue Heron drying its feathers

Snoozing Northern Pintails

Black-bellied Whistling Duck

Our first spotting this year - the flash of green alerted me. It's a green-winged teal.

The greater yellowlegs was hopping around on one leg. It is missing its right foot. It was here a couple of days ago. We call it 'Stumpy'.

The pied-billed greve was snoozing and gently drifting.

We always check the overhead wires on our way back to the parking lot. That day there was an American Kestrel surveying the area.

On the way back to the parking lot we spotted a couple of Pyrrhuloxia hopping around an in a brush pile. The Mockingbird was on the top.

There is a big 'Betony Mistflower' (conoclinium betonicifolium) garden beside the parking lot. There were lots of Fiery Skippers. They're only about 1.5cm in diameter.

To me, mistflowers look like blue ageratum we grow at home but these are on much longer stalks.

Queen butterflies are about 2/3 the size of monarchs and easy to distinguish because of the white dots.

There were also several Tropical Buckeye butterflies. They look a lot like Common Buckeyes but the 'eyes' are a more uniform size on Tropical Buckeyes and the part encircling the top 'eye' is paler.

They're also quite small - maybe 4cm in diameter.