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Today the Stroud Preserve was best described as pretty much an avian desert. It was cold, windy and quite. Very little was moving about at all. My walk today functioned more as a cardio exercise for me than a bird walk. However, there were a couple of patches of sparrow feeding guilds at kept the walk from being a total bird bust. These are usually dominated by White-throated Sparrows and will have other birds mixed in, including tree birds like , bluebirds, nuthatches, chickadees, and woodpeckers. One of these mixed flocks had about 80% of all the individual birds I saw today. It also had a “herd” of cardinals, 38 to be exact. They were all feeding on the open ground with other sparrows and juncos. It was about evenly split between males and females. In my experience, I rare see that many cardinals in one group.

Start time: 9:15
End time: 11:20
Temp: 28°
Wind: brisk to strong from the northwest
Skies: overcast to start becoming clear by midday
Species Total: 28

Black Vulture – 4

Turkey Vulture – approximately 20

Canada Goose – approximately 250

Red-tailed Hawk – 1, adult

Ring-billed Gull – 1

Great Horned Owl – 1, the now regular female on her nest

Red-bellied Woodpecker – approximately 5

Downy Woodpecker – approximately 10

Northern Flicker – 2

Blue Jay – approximately 15

American Crow – approximately 150

Fish Crow – 3

Carolina Chickadee – approximately 10

Tufted Titmouse – approximately 10

White-breasted Nuthatch – approximately 5

Carolina Wren – approximately 10

Eastern Bluebird – approximately 25

American Robin – 3

Northern Mockingbird – 2

European Starling – approximately 30

Eastern Towhee – 5

American Tree Sparrow – 3

Song Sparrow – approximately 35

White-throated Sparrow – approximately 125

Dark-eyed Junco – approximately 20

Northern Cardinal – approximately 50, including 38 in one flock. Bird of the Day!

House Finch – 4

American Goldfinch – approximately 10