Is Spring Coming Already?

Yesterday Stephanie Cobbold and I birded around Cache Valley, mostly by car. We stopped by the Logan Landfill, Benson Marina, 20-20 Ponds, Logan River Golf Course, the Fish Hatchery, and several other areas between Logan and Wellsville. We saw a hundred or so gulls at the landfill that were about 95% Ring-billed Gulls and 5% California Gulls plus a couple that we couldn't confidently identify. (We later identified two additional species from photographs.) I also saw my first Mourning Dove of the year, in Nibley.

Today we took a walk around Logan. We started up the Canal Trail, continued up to First Dam, then up the hill to the golf course and back down to the start of the Canal Trail. Spring was in the air, with relatively warm temperatures (around 40 degrees F) and sunshine inducing "Fee-bee" songs from the Black-capped Chickadees along the canal and courtship displays by the Barrow's Goldeneyes at First Dam. There was one Yellow-rumped Warbler along the Canal Trail, which will be common in the summer but for now are pretty rare here. We watched an ambitous Sharp-shinned Hawk take a shot at a flock of American Robins, but it missed. On the hillside above First Dam, near the canal and the golf course, we saw a flock of about six Chukars, my only first of the year for today.