Bona Dea Update

Bona Dea was mostly sunny and quite a bit warmer and no wind. On Old Shorty Trail there were Robins all over the place and also that same Mockingbird that I saw there the other day. They are quite territorial birds. I did not stay long there and moved on over to Swinging Bridge Trail. Going down Parkway Hwy I saw 2 Cormorants on the old snag and a few floating in the water. Also some Gulls in the water and flying overhead. There seemed to be more than normal Pied-billed Grebe ducks all over Lake Dardanelle in this area. Some Turkey Vultures flying about also. On Swinging Bridge Trail there were many flocks of Carolina Chickadees and they were really noisy today and flying around a lot. I heard a woodpecker off in the distance doing its thing. Never saw it to I.D. There were some American Crows flying around with the usual Gulls and Vultures. Canadian Geese and Ducks were heard out on Black Water Swamp. I saw a pair of very small ducks flying over Waldon Pond and then taking a sharp dive into the Swamp. Northern Cardinals were chirping the sounds of spring. At the spillway I fed the fish and whole bottle of fish food. The Blue Gills really liked it. They like it better soft than the hard pellets. I sometimes soak the pellets in water until soft and they go mad. No musk turtles seen at the feeding site. There were some basking turtles on logs and snags in just about every pool of water and Prarie Creek. But there was a bird that kept feeding on the bottom of the spillway and I would keep scaring it off walking around but it would always come back to that same spot. I then saw another one on the bank close by. These birds must like eating on the wet ground. I identified them as Field Sparrows. Photo. They are a lot like the female House Sparrows. They are narrow bodied and not wider as in the Fox or White-throated Sparrows I have talked about this past winter.