Birding Market Lake & Camas NWR

Monday May 21st

Clearly, I need to rethink my plans. It would have been nice to sleep in after spending three days in Yellowstone, but no. In order to accommodate everyone’s schedules we were up and out of the house by 7:00 a.m. This time heading North to Roberts, Market Lake, and the Camas Wildlife Refuge. Cheryl met us at my house and we loaded the car for Roberts where we’d meet and add Suzy to our car.

We saw so many birds it was one of our best birding trips, EVER. We heard the American bittern before we saw him/them. Over the course of the day we saw 3 adults and several babies. It was hard to count the number of chicks since they bobbed up and down in the reeds.

1 American robin
2 Red tailed hawk
3 Rock doves
4 Black billed magpie
5 Canada geese

6 Killdeer
7 European starlings
8 American crow
9 Eurasian collared doves
10 Savannah sparrows

11 Mourning doves
12 Cliff swallows
13 Yellow headed blackbird
14 Red winged blackbirds
15 Eastern kingbirds

16 Western kingbird
17 Blue winged teals
18 Mallards
19 Western meadowlark
20 Barn Swallow

21 Lesser scaup
22 Redhead
23 Barn swallows
24 Northern harriers
25 Sandhill cranes (with babies)

26 Osprey
27 Tree swallows
28 Northern shovelers
29 Trumpeter swan
30 Ruddy ducks

31 Marsh wrens
32 Gadwalls
33 American coots
34 Long billed curlew
35 White faced ibis

36 Ring billed gulls
37 American avocets
38 Caspian terns
39 Willets
40 American bitterns

41 Brown headed cowbirds
42 Cinnamon teals
43 American white pelicans
44 Double crested cormorants
45 Snowy egret

46 Short eared owls
47 Empidonax flycatcher (couldn’t figure out which one)
48 Yellow rumped warbler
49 Brewer’s blackbirds
50 Black crowned night heron

51 Yellow warbler
52 Swainson’s hawk
53 House sparrow
54 Forster’s tern
55 Great horned owls or rather owlets in this case. We had one adult swoop by too.