When we arrived at about 7:15 am there were already a number of folks congregating in the parking lot by the pavilion. Some were relatively new to birding, like us, while others were obviously serious birders. The final group was probably 30 people or so. The leader of the walk turned out to be Keith Lockhart, who we had met numerous times at Wild Birds Unlimited in Flower Mound.
Cottonwood Trail. We started by making a loop counter clockwise around Cottonwood Trail. The morning was overcast and a bit cool, which seemed to keep many of the birds under cover. Even seeing relatively few birds, it was great to be among people who could identify a wide variety of birds even at a distance or only from their sound. For example, there was an Eastern phoebe making its distinctive call from the electric wire above the parking lot. The leaders later showed us the phoebe nest under the roof of the picnic pavilion, although there are apparently no eggs/baby birds yet.
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| gps track of our day at LLELA |
There were large numbers of Franklin's gulls flying high overhead. These are sometimes called "Prairie Doves" with flocks often seen following plows in farm fields. I had seen these before even from home, but naively identified them in the past as "seagulls" even though I had no idea what they really were since we were nowhere close to sea water.
We saw lots of American coots on the beaver pond, along with a few ducks. It was also interesting to find the bird blind overlooking the pond.
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| American Coots (By CheepShot (American Coots) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons) |
Old Fish Hatchery Site. We were enjoying ourselves, but the leader was concerned about the lack of birds. When we got back to the parking lot we piled into cars and made our way east, through the locked gate at the floodgate, to the old fish hatchery site.
This is now a research facility run by the Army Corps of Engineers known as the Lewisville Aquatic Ecosystem Research Facility or LAERF, which supports studies on the biology, ecology, and management of aquatic plants.
There were a large number of red-winged blackbirds in the abandoned fish ponds, both the familiar looking males and the very drab brown females.
Surprising to the experienced birders was a single red head duck hanging out with an American coot in one of the ponds. This was a very beautiful bird, but according to others in the group, he should already have migrated north. Although he looked perfectly fine, he may have been injured or something.
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| Red head duck (By Kevin Bercaw (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons) |
We also saw several black vultures perched on telephone poles. These birds have a black head and shorter tail in contrast to the red head and longer tail of the turkey vultures we normally see everywhere.
We could also see large equipment (road graders, backhoes, etc.) on the dam above the LAERF headquarters. This is the site where the dam was partially damaged during the flooding last spring and is currently under repair. When looking at our gps track on Google Earth, I realized I could see the damaged area on the water side of the dam.
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| LAERF headquarters also showing damaged section of the dam |
Ritter Cemetery. Next on the tour was a stop at Ritter Cemetery. It is just south of the the fish hatchery site, although a bit further via the road. I knew this cemetery was here, but had never actually visited since it is within the "restricted area" of LLELA. Ritter Cemetery is an active cemetery, established approximately 1860. According to this article in the Dallas Morning News, this was the cemetery for the Ritter Lake Community. Although the cemetery remains in its original location, the community is under Lewisville Dam or the southeastern corner of Lewisville Lake. We spent quite a long time exploring the cemetery and the many old and not so old grave sites.
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| gps track of our trip with Ritter Cemetery in the center |
Bird banding. Just outside the cemetery, in the trees next to the parking lot, is the LLELA Bird Banding Station operated by the UNT Institute of Applied Science. Among other things, it helps to monitor the flow of spring and fall migrant birds moving through LLELA on the Central Flyway. Although there were faculty and a large number of students, there were no birds when we visited so we did not stay long.
Eagle Sighting. As the caravan of cars made their way back towards the flood gate, we noticed a large bird being chased by a smaller bird. We did not think too much about this, since we frequently see blue jays and other birds chasing hawks in our neighborhood. We lost the two birds in the trees, but then saw them again. The two reappeared over the road. The larger bird finally came to rest just below the crest of the dam. It was then that I realized it had to be an enormous bird since I could still see it even though it was very far away. Once I got the binoculars on it I realized it was a bald eagle and the "small" bird chasing it must have been at least hawk-size. What a thrill! We had heard of eagles being seen here, but we never thought we would see one.
More raptors. The entire group stopped at the floodgate and stood for sometime watching from that location. From there we saw the eagle fly over the river a few times as well as an osprey perched high in the top of a dead tree and (at least according to some of the experienced birders) some migrating broad wing hawks. It was nice to get verification that yes, it really was an eagle we had seen even though we did't have photographic evidence to prove it. (Note: Pictures, as posted on the DFW Urban Wildlife Facebook page, show the eagle at this same location the next day.)
All and all we thought this was a very interesting Saturday morning at LLELA.
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