International Migratory Bird Day

Tags

birding, birds, International Migratory Bird Day, Killdeer, snow, Snowing, Spring

In honor of International Migratory Bird Day, this year on May 9, I decided to spend the entire day birding. I was not going for a big day, just spending the day outside watching birds. The weather, cool and very overcast, was not the best for birding. It had been raining several days prior to the day thus the “gravel” (dirt) roads were already somewhat messy. I decided to stick to driving on pavement and hiking several known areas. By afternoon the sky opened up and snow started to fall, numerous birds had stalled out from their spring migration. The water birds were just fine but when I entered the sage brush habitat all seemed to be quiet. I captured this lone Killdeer in a pasture, standing in the snow, I am sure there was another close by sitting on eggs. All in all it was a great day to be out: 77 species and 1761 birds recorded.