Subject: BIRDING IN BAKERSFIELD, CA
Date: Feb 23 17:16:52 2000
From: Lydia Gaebe - lydiainkent at hotmail.com


Hello Tweeties!

Lydia Gaebe reporting from Bakersfield, California. The weather hasn't been
the greatest, but I've been able to do a wee bit of birding at Hart Park.
Hart Park is just outside of town along the Kern River. That park is a
birder's paradise. If only I had more time.....

Many of the birds I spied down here are birds we can find with relative ease
in the Pacific Northwest. In other words I haven't picked up much of
anything in new additions to my "life list".

My new "life list" additions are in CAPS.

Residing at Hart Park is a motley crew of huge Muscovy-domestic
white-Mallard hybrid ducks. Some are quite attractive and some are down
right ugly. Also resident at Hart Park is a large Pea fowl flock. These
arrogant birds stand in the middle of the road, stare at you, dare you to
run them over, and take their time crossing when they get around to deciding
to cross. The pea fowl also live in other parts of Bakersfield as well. They
are not the most welcome neighbors in residential areas with their loud
early morning calling!

Here's my "bird-a-thon" (Total of two and a half hours!)

Ring Turtle Doves
Spotted Doves
White Crowned Sparrows (default backyard tweetie at my mom's house)
Oregon Juncos
Northern Mocking bird
Scrub Jays (these guys are all over Hart Park, acting very much like our
Stellar Jays. Yesterday I swear they were dropping pine cones at me as I
walked under "their" trees.)
Brewer's Blackbirds (default parking lot bird - much more abundant down here
than in Seattle)
YELLOW RUMPED WARBLER (These little guys are all over the place)
BLACK PHOEBE (all new! It hung around the same tree long enough for me to
hunt it down in my bird book. I knew it was a flycatcher by it's body
language and general shape, so I leafed through the book untill I found the
flycatchers)

Hart Park is a "Heron Haven"
CATTLE EGRET
GREAT EGRET
Great Blue Heron
American Bittern
Black Crowned Night Heron

Northern Mockingbirds (they act a bit like jays - very brassy and bold)

Northern Flicker (red shafted variety)

Western Bluebird (second time - first time was at the Nisqually Delta)
Belted Kingfisher

Bald Eagle
Red Tailed Hawk

The American Crows down here have a distinct "accent". They sound very
different from our Seattle area crows. Didn't get to see any
ravens.....shucks. Too much snow in the Frasier Park area to go look for
the juvenile delinquent condors.

Well, that's my mini birding report from Bakersfield.

Lydia In Kent
Lydia Gaebe
lgaebe at msn.com




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