Sunday, October 3, 2010

Lake Park birds 9/3 - 9/7

Lake Park birders,

See the messages from
http://www.birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/WISC.html
Wis Bird Net that I am forwarding below.

--- Paul Hunter
Whitefish Bay, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin
http://home.roadrunner.com/~phunter1/lakeparkbirds.html
=====================================================

Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 14:23:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: "B.G. Sloan" <bgsloan2@yahoo.com>
Subject: [wisb] Milwaukee, Labor Day weekend - Osprey, Peregrine
Pair, 7 new BI

... I started out the extended Labor Day weekend on Friday, with a
trip to Lake Park. Not much activity at the North Point algae mats
(couple of Semipalmated Plovers and Sanderlings), but I picked up
four new BIGBY species up on the bluff in Lake Park:

* Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Milwaukee walking BIGBY species #114.
* Orange-crowned Warbler. BIGBY #115.
* Scarlet Tanager. BIGBY #116.
* Eastern Towhee. BIGBY #117.

... I made a trip to Lake Park early this morning. The wind was
starting to pick up, so it was hard to find birds. But there were a
few interesting things, including BIGBY species #120. The highlights:

* The North Point algae mats were in fine shape. Lots of gulls...150
+. Lots of shorebirds...40+ birds. But nothing new: Sanderlings,
Spotted Sandpipers, and Semipalmated Sandpipers and Semipalmated
Plovers.
* I'd seen only a couple of Barn Swallows over the past several days.
But this morning there were 12-15 foraging over the grassy area just
south of the water filtration plant.
* Maybe 150 Chimney Swifts flying around above the bluff.
* BIGBY species #120 (Veery). I was at the top of the bluff and some
brief motion caught my attention in the woods. I waited for a bit. My
patience paid off.

Bernie Sloan
Milwaukee

------------------------------

From: "Jym Mooney & Carol Lee Hopkins" <hopmoon@milwpc.com>
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2010

... this evening a group of 10-11 Sanderlings remained on the algae
mat on
the rocks north of Bradford Beach, along with a couple of Semi-Palmated
Plovers (all of which I had first seen early this morning). Early this
morning I also had three Baird's and one Least Sandpiper on Bradford
Beach,
with three more SP Plovers.

Jym Mooney, Milwaukee

------------------------------

From: "Mike Duchek" <mikeduchek@hotmail.com>
Subject: [wisb] Re: Lake park Milwaukee (ID help?)
Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 16:20:50 -0500

For anyone who was wondering, 1-5 were magnolia (mostly the same
bird), 6-7 blackpoll (should have looked at the feet) and Nashville
(I read they should have a white throat but maybe just not visible in
this one).
Thanks again,

-Mike Duchek, Waukesha, Waukesha Co.

------------------------------
From: Paul Sparks
Sent: Friday, September 03, 2010 4:02 PM
To: mikeduchek@hotmail.com
Cc: wisbirdn@freelists.org
Subject: Re: [wisb] Lake park Milwaukee (ID help?)


I didn't leave right away, instead I walked down to the bridge near
Lake Park Bistro and didn't have too much luck. I saw pretty much the
same birds as Mike. Although while watching a Redstart try to eat a
rather large insect I saw a Great Crested Flycatcher try to swoop in
an steal it. He was unsuccessful. There was plenty of activity but
like Mike said, not a lot of light. I haven't looked at my photos yet
but I don't think there's anything remarkable. Maybe tomorrow will be
better with the sun.

Paul Sparks
Glendale, Milwaukee County

------------------------------
On Fri, Sep 3, 2010 at 1:33 PM, Mike Duchek <mikeduchek@hotmail.com>
wrote:

I went to lake park in Milwaukee this morning from about
9:30-11:30 AM. Had never been there much before so I was kind of
exploring. I picked a crappy day though. The weather started out
promising with a little sun at one point, but it got progressively
cloudier and windier with big gusts at times. Still a lot of birds,
but made things a lot more difficult both for visibility and taking
photos.
Went down into the ravine trail where I saw Paul Sparks. He went
to try to photograph up above but I think he must have left shortly
thereafter as I couldn't find him again. Tons and tons and tons of
redstarts (including 2 adult males, redstarts probably made up 85% of
warblers I saw), some black and whites - I was just a few feet from
one B&W at one point but so dark that could not get a good photo.

Also some I couldn't ID right away though I think I know the
magnolia. See photos, here are my guesses (and I promise I am slowly
getting better at this). You can click view full size to blow these up:

http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/578511138kEGLDx

1. ??? on left (magnolia?) and magnolia on right?
2-5. same bird - magnolia?
6-7. same bird - bay-breasted?
8. Tennessee? Don't see a supercilium which the guide shows, but
eyering looks complete.

Also at least a couple thrushes (Swainson's for maybe one of
them. Just got a fleeting glance, looked cold/gray with a spotted
collar), numerous hummingbirds in the ravine, ? flycatchers including
at least one pewee (but did not see any yellow-bellied, are the
mystery ones likely least FCs in this location?), and of course the
usual suspects.

If you have crappy weather like I did, I recommend checking out
the little flower garden next to the ravine (between the ravine and
the baseball diamond). It had a better mix than the ravine itself
and some of the warblers seem to feed in there, and there will be a
bit more sun there than in the ravine itself. The ravine was laregly
flycatching redstarts.

-Mike Duchek, Waukesha, Waukesha Co.

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