Friday, October 26, 2012

The spot to spot a spot

Saint Louie! Friday, October 26th, Birdseye pointed us to a residential area in Kirkwood, Missouri. We immediately SPOTTED Eurasian Tree Sparrows, 665, the ones with a SPOT behind their eye, in a front yard. The lady who lived there was very friendly. She told us that a neighbor boy, ten years old, was an enthusiastic birder. Perhaps he was the one who reported the sparrow to Ebird. His house had several feeders in front and several Eurasian Tree Sparrows. John got some great pictures. That made decent photographs of 600 species this year. I left a thank you note in the birding boy's mailbox. It is always fun to hear from the new generations of birders. They are out there. I meet them every year at Sea and Sage Audubon's summer camps.

Then we went over to Tower Grove Park in the city proper. It has a nice brushy path and drip on the west end of the park. There were lots of White-Throated Sparrows for John to photograph, some thrushes, and at the other end of the park, where there is a little pond, finally, a Fox Sparrow was digging out in the open. So now he has photographs of 602 species this year.

We will nose around the Mississippi flyway for a few days. There are lots of conservation areas to check out.

As I looked back through old posts, I noticed discrepancies in my running total for John's big year list. It isn't set in stone. John will go through his list and notes at the end of the year to decide just what number he will submit. Some iffy birds he will drop, some he might decide to add. The number I highlight after each new bird is close to the 'real' total, so I will continue to use it. Sorry for any confusion. We are confused every day!

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