Another sunny day…..

Another warm sunny day….

and oh so dry!  I don’t remember there being this little water in this area before – ever!!!  Because memory isn’t always reliable, I thought I’d go back in my files…

here is the same view, taken on September 25th, 2010 – look at the difference!  Last year, the water was still so high we couldn’t even walk across the grasslands….so I think we have cause to be concerned with the lack of water, with salmon due to start arriving in less than a month!

There wasn’t much around again today.  This lone Great Blue Heron was perched over in the bone dry pond.  There were few ducks way out…

coming back past the equally dry ‘first bay’…

spotted this Northern Harrier coursing over the edge of the grassland…

Killdeer suddenly flew and called hysterically – they’d been invisible until then.

and speaking of ‘invisible’ there were a number of sparrows again, some in the grass and some down on the muddy shoreline but ‘invisible’ until they flew.  In the last few days we’ve seen a Lincoln Sparrow, a Song Sparrow and now, today at least one of them was a Savannah Sparrow.

another look at the Savannah Sparrow.  Should mention the Band-tail Pigeon are still here but haven’t seen the White-throated Sparrow.  Lots of Robins still around and a number of Black-capped Chickadees moving through the park today.