Provo River (12/5), etc.

["Matthew J. Williams" <mjw22 at comcast dot net>]

Good evening all,
	At about 10:00 this morning, my wife and I took a walk along the Provo
River, heading west from 800 West to the Duck pond before the tracks.  On
our approach to the trail, we saw a Downy Woodpecker and a few Robins flew
over, headed southbound (a wise choice these days).  There is a nice little
feeder & bird house setup along the river trail where we had most of our
activity.  Here there was a Brown Creeper, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, 2
Northern Flickers several Chickadees,  Juncos and House Finches.  We also
noticed a fair amount of Beaver activity (girdled and felled trees) on the
south side of the river.  No dams or lodges...yet.  At least 1 Belted
Kingfisher (male) cruised along the river and we had mainly Mallards and
Magpies (at least 7) near the pond.  One of the Magpies gave a clicking
call that seemed to be in sequence with other Magpies giving strange but
more typical calls.  A Kestrel sat high in the tree looking over the mutant
mallards, etc. in the pond.  We saw another Kestrel on the lines along the
road that runs north-south, west of UVSC in Orem.  We had seen him earlier
in the fall and wondered if he hung around.  Apparently so.
	Also, a late sighting from Thursday, my wife, Amanda, reports seeing what
likely were 2 female Hooded Mergansers a bit downstream from the Macy's
underpass and upstream from the fire station underpass. One was attempting
to eat a fish.
	And to respond to KC's post about the Canada Geese, all the birds I saw
yesterday were way off to the north.  Sorry I didn't mention that it would
have been tough to pick out a Cackling from among them, even with a scope.

Good Birding,
Matt Williams
Provo, UT

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