Bona Dea Update

Bona Dea was cloudy today and started raining late in the afternoon. I first went to Old Shorty Trail at the east end of the park and saw Chickedees and Robins and some American Crows. There is usually something different to see this time of year as birds are migrating through here in March. I kept hearing some chirping in the trees and kept trying to see the birds. I finally walked down and saw several birds up in a tree canopy and started watching them. They would walk down a limb and start eating and then walk to another part of the same limb and do the same thing. They would fly to the ground and then back up in the same tree. At first I thought they were Cedarwaxwings. They had the same shape and close to the same color and acted the same way as they ate the leaf buds on this tree. Did not know the name of the tree but they sure like the leave buds of this same spindley but tall tree. But after some research, I determined them to be Yellow-rumped Wablers. Photo. This time of year I learned that they are pale in color and you don't see the yellow markings. Later I went over to Swinging Bridge Trail and at the old snag on Lake Dardanelle there was the lone Double-crested Cormorant and right beside it not 6 inches apart was a Sea Gull. Probably a Herring Gull. They were just looking and admiring each other. Hope they don't get married. Poor Children. There were Gulls flying overhead and some Vultures doing the same. Pairs of Canadian Geese were flying over to Black Water Swamp. I heard the pecking sound of a peckerwood really doing its thing. Did not view it. At the spillway I fed the fish and they were hitting the food while the light rain came down. The flocks of Carolina Chickedees were still there today. Photo of one with black on head.