The mudflats along the northeast shore of Hoover Reservoir are slowly but stubbornly emerging. Shorebird activity is next to non-existent with only Killdeer and a sole Spotted Sandpiper to be found. The shallow water however is like a magnet to the waders as there were no less than 29 Great Blue Herons, 15 Great Egrets and 3 Green Herons busily working the pools and shallow water. Out on the snags were a small group of Double-crested Cormorants and on the sandbars I counted 7 Caspian Terns mixed in with the Ring-billed Gulls. Two adult Bald Eagles perched in a cottonwood tree were surveying the scene below them with mixed interest.



I moved on to Area N hoping for more activity. I didn’t fair any better here this morning. The area between the boardwalk and the old roadbed contained 6 Great Egrets, a group of Great Blue Herons and a few more Caspian Terns. The area between the old roadbed and Big Walnut Creek yielded a Red-headed Woodpecker, 3 Eastern Wood Pewees, a pair of Eastern Phoebes, several Wood Ducks and 85 to 90 Cedar Waxwings feeding on flying insects around a tree in the back area. I heard a group of crows mobbing something across Big Walnut Creek, but sans a way to cross I never learned what the victim of their attention was.



As I headed back home I observed additional Great Egrets in the bay at Dustin Road. The water is receding there but the area still lacks decent mudflats.



Charlie Bombaci

Hoover Nature Preserve

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