White-winged Crossbills finally.

I met Donna Kuhn at Greenlawn Cemetery at 12:45 for a 6th attempt at locating the  ww crossbills and the Merlin.  Donna needed the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.  The game plan was to walk the cemetery until we found these nemesis birds.  We headed around the back side of the pit and immediately ran into a lovely flock of a dozen or so crossbills 5 feet off of the ground.  We had several minutes of splendid eye-level looks.  They were in the spruce closest to the pit in area 47.  Other birders were rewarded in area 77 closer to 3:30 in the afternoon, in the sweetgum.  We tried to relocate, but never saw them again.

The Merlin was in area 72, in a gingko tree. As we got close, it flew off, returning in < 2 minutes with a bird.  It landed in the sycamore, so we were able to watch it pluck and eat it's snack.  We saw it back in the ginko as we were leaving at 4:00.

The sapsucker came late in the afternoon, close to the pit.  

The pit was not as birdy as other recent visits, but it did offer very close views of Pine Siskins.  The feeders were very low on seed.  A Northern Flicker stuck his head up into the platform feeder from below to get at the remaining seed.

Others:
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Red-bellied woodpecker
Yellow-rumped Warbler
White-throated sparrow
American Tree Sparrow
Dark-eyed  junco
American Robin
American goldfinch
House Finch
Mourning Dove
Northern Cardinal
White-breasted nuthatch
Carolina Chickadee
Carolina Wren

Notable absent was the brown creeper and the red-breasted nuthatch, and no redpolls.

We stopped by Greenlawn Dam for a quick look.  Like Rob reported, there were many Ring-billed gulls, 2 Herring gulls, Mallards, Canada Geese, Great Blue Heron, and 5 resplendent pairs of Hooded Mergansers in close to the spillway.

A very successful day.  Hope they all stay for next Saturday's CA outing!
Leslie S.



Sent from my iPad
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