Red Cliffs Audubon January Field trip

[Bill Hunter <dixiewillie at skyviewmail dot com>]

Greetings from warm Southern Utah.

Red Cliffs Audubon went south for their January field trip to sunny Las
Vegas. Our primary destination was the city of Henderson's Bird Viewing
Preserve, the location of which is the Water Reclamation Facility at
the east end of Sunset Rd. This is a great place to bird. Adequate
facilities, visitor friendly and easy access to the 8 major viewing
"reservoirs" makes for a delightful bird outing, despite images
conjured up when you think of a sewage treatment plant.

The nine birders spent about 3 hours and came up with a total of 41
species. Some of the more interesting were:

Northern Harrier
Peregrine Falcon
Virginia Rail
Sora (excellent look at several individuals)
Common Moorhen
Greater Yellowlegs (up close and personal)
Greater Roadrunner
Verdin (great look at the rufous shoulder patch)
Black-tailed Gnatcatcher
Abert's Towhee

Lots of waterfowl present, couple of common warblers, and friendly
personnel at the visitors center, makes you want to stay even longer.

Wanting to get to Corn Creek, our secondary focus, we thought we would
stop at a place not known to us and just check it out. Bad mistake. The
Clark County Wetlands Park Nature Preserve, located at the east end of
Tropicana Ave., and about a mile or so north of the "ponds", captivated
us. We never got to Corn Creek. What a magnificent place to bird. The
county has done some great work here turning the wash (running with a
strong surge of water) into a birding paradise and nature preserve. We
would welcome projects like this here in Southern Utah. It definitely
is in our agenda for future trips. In Red Rock Audubon's checklist
"Birds of the Las Vegas Wash", there are listed 235 species of bird
known to inhabit or migrate through the wetlands, Mesquite forest,
Desert shrub, and the reconditioned rocky, river (Wash) of the preserve.

We didn't come close to seeing all those species, as we saw only a
total of 21, but it was an easy walk over 1.7 miles of 8' wide paved
"trail". Birds of interest:

Northern Harrier
Red-tailed hawk
Peregrine Falcon
Common Moorhen
Spotted Sandpiper
Black Phoebe
Loggerhead Shrike
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Black-tailed Gnatcatcher (nice close looks)
Phainopepla

You will want to be sure and include this in any birding outing to
Southern Nevada.

As I mentioned, we didn't have time to go to Corn Creek, and from what
I've heard, it sounds like a miniature Lytle Ranch. Boy, there are some
great places to bird in and around Las Vegas

Bill Hunter
St. George

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