Observers: Justin Hite and David Winkler
Email: justinhiteatgmaildotcom
Verification: MONO
Remote Name: 69.232.237.130
Date: 04/30/2007
Time: 02:07 AM -0400
Wink and I were in town on Friday and Saturday to work on swallow nest boxes. We took a trip down to the Rush Creek Delta on Friday afternoon, passing a Golden Eagle perched on a Bitterbrush along Test Station Road. Sage Sparrows and a Sage Thrasher were running around in the sagebrush on the walk to the delta, and we were greeted by a few hundred California Gulls in fancy breeding plumage, along with an immature Bonaparte’s Gull and an adult Franklin’s Gull, once we got there. Cinnamon Teal drakes were bobbing their heads up and down beside the hens, and a male Common Yellowthroat was with a male Yellow Warbler and a half a dozen Audubon’s Warblers in the willows at the delta mouth. A Great Egret was foraging with two Snowy Egrets, a Sora called, and a Snipe blasted out of the marshy grasses. There was a crazy moment when an Osprey swooped down and drank water from the lake a few yards from where the creek flows in. On Friday night there were Poorwills calling in the sagebrush west of Lee Vining, and on Saturday morning we saw a Lark Sparrow in Mono City, a Prairie Falcon soaring over the Mobil, and a Western Kingbird up Lee Vining Canyon.