Panam Flghts

Dawn at Panama Flats

With a reasonable forecast for Wednesday morning, I got up dark and early and headed out to Panama Flats and had a decent root around from about  7.20am-9.45am.
The sun was just rising but there was enough light to scan through the mass of wildfowl on the southwest and northwest quadrants. 
As on my last visit to this wonderful site there were hundreds of pintail, American wigeon, green-winged teal and mallard. In amongst the quacking congregation there were also smaller numbers of northern shoveler, gadwall and a few hooded merganser and bufflehead too. I was hoping to locate a Eurasian teal in the mix, but only found a couple of drake Eurasian wigeons. 
There were good numbers of tiny cackling geese, in with many Canadas of varying sizes. During the first hour of daylight flights of ducks and geese continued to arrive and depart, truly adding to the wonderful feeling that many of these birds are just arriving from northern climes.

Peregrine

Walking along the path on the western side of the pools I flushed a short-eared owl which duly drifted off and dropped into an area of thick brambles. 
I walked the perimeter of the flats and stopped briefly to admire an adult peregrine (pictured) before coming across a flock of dark-eyed juncos and mixed sparrows feeding on the muddy path in the northeast corner. 
Among them were a number of Lincoln's sparrows and I got a brief but convincing look at what was almost certainly a swamp sparrow. Disappointed that I couldn't get the thing to emerge for a better look, I plodded on conscious of the time and my need to get to work.

Just after passing the grey building adjacent to Carey Road, another flock of sparrows exploded from the weedy pathside grass. A dark sparrow caught my eye as it flitted away and I got my bins on it as it clung to some tall grass stems. Now, that definitely was a swamp sparrow! It dropped down and strangely seemed to emerge again immediately several feet to the right. Odd. 
As I enjoyed more good looks at the bird it was joined by another from the left - there were two together! They flitted off in unison toward the central berm, stopping frequently in tussocks of vegetation. Nice! 

Northern harrier

Throughout the early morning a pair of northern harriers were hunting over the area (juvenile pictured) and a Cooper's hawk was patrolling the ringside trees, keeping the red-winged and Brewer's blackbirds on alert.

As I left I met Ian Cruikshank who was doing a survey of the site and before long Rick Schortinghuis arrived so who knows what else may be found at the flats this morning!

On my way to the car I noticed one of the wintering white-throated sparrows at Hyacincth.