El Franco Lee

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Last Saturday morning I left home early to get down to El Franco Lee Park, where I was hoping to see a range of wading birds and ducks and perhaps a Bald Eagle.

As soon as I arrived, I ran into a group of 80+ White Ibis grazing near the parking area.

There were more White Ibis perched in several nearby trees.

A walk along part of Nature Trail 2 gave me good views of the water but all I saw were a few Northern Shovelers and a lot of American Coots (below).

The inland side of the trail had only a few common birds, such as Yellow-rumped Warblers.

Back at the gazebo, scores of White Ibis were wading next to numerous Great and Snowy Egrets.

A solitary Laughing Gull seemed rather out-of-place.

A walk to the other side of the lake produced little except three Loggerhead Shrikes.

However, it did allow me to get a photo of a Northern Harrier.

At the gazebo again, several American Crows were perched on lampposts.

Before leaving I spent a while looking for the Say’s Phoebe that has been hanging out there for some weeks. It didn’t take long to find the bird, and I was pleasantly surprised when it let me take photos from only 30 feet away.

My trip hadn’t yielded as many species as I had hoped but even just getting to watch the Phoebe made the visit worthwhile.

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