Day 18.126: Birds at Sanford Lagoons

I took the morning off work and Exile #2, Exile #4 and I went to Sanford Lagoons (i.e. Sanford Sewerage District) to see what we would see. Here, in part, is the answer:

American kestrel - almost the first bird we spotted

Momma Canada goose is still wading, but the little-uns are swimming

Spotted sandpiper

Flyby from a group of them

Spotted sandpiper

Two killdeer - make up your own story

Love the photobombing side-eye-giving sandpiper

Female red-winged blackbird

Male red-winged blackbird

Gray catbird

Black-and-white warbler

Eastern kingbird

Song sparrow

Great blue heron

Warbling video - a second sighting. First one was here two years ago

Perhaps the biggest surprise was the double-crested cormorants. Not seeing them like this:

Two adults and a juvenile doing their distinctive low-in-the-water swimming

But this:

Adult pitched in a tree

Juvenile perched in a tree

We watched one take several runs at landing in this tree - doing a circuit over the water and then attempting to stick the landing. When it eventually did do: it caused such a lot of shaking of the tree that we thought it would eject the other cormorants perched nearby. 

One of the last birds we saw having completed our loop was the kestrel again/:

Seen but not pictured: yellow warbler, white-breasted nuthatch, Baltimore oriole, mallard and a mystery sparrow (likely savannah). Heard but not (or barely) seen: common yellowthroat.