Dixie Birders Pine Park Field Trip

["William J. Hunter" <dixiewili at redrock dot net>]

Greetings birders.

The Dixie Birders, consisting today (Friday, Aug. 2, 2002) of a collection
of hardy souls from St. George and Cedar City, went to a very beautiful area
known as Pine Park. Our target bird was the Zone-tailed Hawk and we were
successful.

Pine Park is actually a campground with a broad designation in the Northwest
corner of Washington County. You travel through a great deal of
Pinyon/Juniper Forest to get there only to find a very open Ponderosa Pine
Forest known as Pine Park. There was considerable water there. Both Pine
Park Spring and Pine Park Canyon were flowing.

The areas birded were the agricultural area on SR 219, West of Enterprise,
Utah and Shoal Creek; Shoal Creek Reservoir; the road in and down to Pine
Park; and Pine Park proper including the creek up to Pine Spring. A total of
42 species was seen, three of which were lifers for this birder.

Here is an accounting by each location:

1) Shoal Creek and the adjacent agricultural area along SR 219.
Red-tailed Hawk - 3, American Kestrel, Wild Turkey (Rio Grande) - 4,
Mourning Dove, Black-chinned Hummingbird, Northern Flicker, Say's Phoebe,
Western Kingbird, Pinyon Jay - 68+, Common Raven, Violet-green Swallow, Barn
Swallow, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher - 3, Lark Sparrow, Brewer's Blackbird.

2) Shoal Creek Reservoir
Great Blue Heron - 2, Black-crowned Night-Heron - 5, Turkey Vulture - 31
(Birds were both on the ground and in the air, eventually forming three
large kettles of birds. All scoped extensively for Zone-taileds, all TV's.),
Green-winged Teal, Mallard, Killdeer, Semipalmated Sandpiper - 1,
Long-billed Dowitcher - 1, Common Nighthawk - 4, Violet-green Swallow, Sage
Sparrow, Great-tailed Grackle - 2, Brown-headed Cowbird

3) Road in and down to Pine Park. I must say that the ridge above Pine Park
had a large number of raptors moving West to East along it. Some were easily
identified, some moved along the horizon so quickly as to appear and
disappear behind Juniper with only a moments notice. So, many seen were not
positively identified and are not listed here. Might this be Washington
County¹s Hawk Watch site?
Zone-tailed Hawk - 1 (First seen by Judy Jordan, broadcast on our FRs
radios, bringing the rest of us to a screeching halt, necessitating turning
around and retracing our steps back up to her location. To those of you
familiar with Pine Park, the bird was first seen in the white Hoodoo area on
the road down to the park. Bird was watched close up and extensively at a
distance as it moved East along a ridge. Possible second bird, but distance
was our enemy here.) Red-tailed Hawk - 5, Golden Eagle - 1, Western
Scrub-Jay, Pinyon Jay - 20+, Common Raven.

4) Pine Park and Pine Park Spring.
Turkey Vulture - 1, Red-tailed Hawk - 2 (excellent views of two birds who
³enjoyed² flying), Wild Turkey (Merriams) - 2, Western Wood-Pewee - 3,
Cassin¹s Kingbird - 1, Northern Shrike (juvenile) - 1, Pinyon Jay - 30+,
Chickadee sp., White-breasted Nuthatch - 3, Rock Wren - 1, Blue-gray
Gnatcatcher - 2, Western Bluebird - 1, American Robin, Chipping Sparrow,
Black-chinned Sparrow (juveniles) - 3, Lark Sparrow, ³Gray-headed² Junco.

A very successful day in the field. Now it is time to turn our attention to
the shorebird migration that appears to be under full ³wing² up north on the
Great Salt Lake.

Enjoy the migration.

Bill Hunter
St. George, UT


________________________________________________________

"Red Cliffs" web site: http://www.xmission.com/~cldavis/
To unsubscribe from the redcliffs birdnet:
  Send a e-mail  to:     redcliffs-request@utahbirds.org
  In message body, type:                   unsubscribe
________________________________________________________