Little Cypress Creek

Last Sunday morning I spent 90 minutes exploring Little Cypress Creek Preserve. This is a nature preserve at the junction of Telge Road and Spring Cypress Road. Because it has only been open a couple of years, the facilities are primitive - well, there aren't any, except for a couple of trails and the occasional bench. However, it's a pretty area and the bird list already runs to 125 species.

On this visit, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the trails were dry and the preserve was largely mosquito-free.

Unfortunately, I had stupidly left my binoculars at home. (Call myself a birder?) So I had to ID birds largely by their behavior and their calls/songs. I did have my camera, though, and this enabled me to check my IDs when I got home. It was heartening to find that I hadn't made any mistakes.

Eastern Phoebe

Judging from the calls, the most common birds were certainly Red-bellied Woodpeckers, Northern Mockingbirds and Blue Jays. (The latter seem to be unusually common this fall.) But there were also lots of wrens: Wherever I walked, I got scolded by wrens; from the calls and the occasional glimpses I got, most of them appeared to be Sedge Wrens. I also got a really severe telling-off from a Belted Kingfisher.

Other birds that I noted were Great Egret, Loggerhead Shrike, Eastern Phoebe, Northern Cardinal, Eastern Bluebirds and Turkey Vultures.