Welcome back birders!!! 

 

Yesterday was the first official Palomar birding outing in two years. So good to see so many old faces and delightful to see several new ones as well. It was a fantastic day with 62 species sighted. Many thanks to the many expert birders who chose to join the rest of us to pick out, identify and photograph so many species. When I look over the list, I wonder if I was actually on the trip. So many birds seen by so many different people out of our group of 23. Where was I, I say to myself, when this or that bird was seen. When we walk back to the cars from our tally point someone always reflects that this is where they saw the red-bellied sapsucker. I never  have. Well, again Steve Ellis with his ever searching eyes found one. In addition he, miraculously, sighted a zone-tailed hawk. Last time we saw one of those here was in the Doug Nail days when Dave Cowen spotted one for the whole group to see.

 

It was a brilliant sunny day and so, I guess not only we were out, but the the birds too. Sixty-two species is definitely a record. The closest we ever came to this was in 2014 when we saw fifty-seven species.

 

You may note that I have chosen to copy this list from Steve Ellis’s eBird report. Many thanks to him and to others who have contributed their actual photos from this day.