Birders(including me)sometimes fall into the trap of only visiting hotspots that have a large area with a variety of habitat because it provides the most potential for seeing a larger variety of species. Often, this requires more travel time and the burning up gasoline which has been very expensive this year.
What about one of those nice little parks in town? A lot of time we just pass right by them thinking there may not be enough birds there to make it worth while. Sounds harsh, but I'm just being honest.
But what if we made a stop at 2 or more of these small parks that are in close proximity of each other? You may only see 10-20 species at each park but maybe you might exceed 30 species if you combine all 3!
That is just what I did the other day with my first stop being at a roadside pond. I spent 15 minutes viewing from one spot. this was the only place out of the 3 that I saw a great Blue Heron, Mallards, and...this Carolina Wren!
My next stop was at a little nature garden. I spent 30 minutes taking a stroll along the paths and it turned out that this was the only place I ended up seeing American Goldfinches and a Northern Mockingbird!
My final stop was at a land trust which yielded my only Ruby-crowned Kinglet of the day!
When you think about it birds don't stay within the borders of any one park or nature center so why should we?
(Note: blogger was behaving very badly so I had to place the pictures and text in an order that was not of my choosing).
2 comments:
Aww, great shots!
Sorry blogger was misbehaving but the photos are beautiful.
Thanks!
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