It was a small group today – Warren and Lynne, Colin and Stephanie, Richard, Lidia and Glen – which I am sure accounts for the small number of birds we saw. You can see the eBird list in the link below with only 20 species. Some of us had trouble finding the trailhead with an 11-year-old GPS database and others were ambushed by traffic snarl-ups around the bridges. Maybe the birds had trouble getting here too? The weather was very cooperative, however, sunny and a little cool with absolutely no wind.
After checking to see if there was a Dipper in the rocks at the end of the culvert (there was not), we headed out along the north-side trail. Many of the usual suspects were in the bushes and trees to entertain us – Anna’s Hummingbird, Purple Finch, Song Sparrow, Spotted Towhee, Dark-eyed Juncos – and eventually we also saw Robins, Starlings, Flickers and Black-capped Chickadees. We had a few hawks high up on the back side of trees through the bare branches – one Cooper’s Hawk and one Red-tailed Hawk.
But the water birds were very well hidden. We didn’t even see any Mallards in any slough or ditch until we we’d been there quite some time. Eventually we saw 7 Green-winged Teal and then more Mallards, a couple of Canada Geese and finally one Great Blue Heron up in a tree. We were looking forward to seeing a few different ducks on the Pitt River, but the only thing we could see out on the water was another pair of Canada Geese.
Not a total loss going all the way to the river though since we saw the “resident” Belted Kingfisher there, and 2 Bald Eagles (adults) up in the trees. We heard stories from other walkers about White-tailed Deer and Coyotes but they never appeared for us. We saw signs of beaver activity in some chewed tree trunks and a small dam across the stream … but no actual beavers. And finally, Glen found a few fungi across the ditch covering an old Birch – looks again like Fomes fomitopsis.
Glen Bodie
Delta Naturalists Society 
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