NASWC neighborhood bird walk

I took Chloe to pal Mikael's bird walk this morning; we spent two hours on a nice paved trail whose existence I had not previously suspected.

These are the birds I got good looks at. It was a great outing. It's fantastic to see so many different species on a leisurely walk:

• Summer tanager
• House wren
• Unidentified hummingbird
• White winged dove
• American Redstart (I never heard of this one, it was pretty interesting-looking.)
• Wilson's Warbler
• M, F Cardinal
• Blue Jay
• M, F Lesser Goldfinch
• F Hummingbird...black chinned or ruby-throated
• Least Flycatcher
• Eastern Phoebe
• Great Blue Heron
• Killdeer
• Barn Swallow
• Bell's Vireo
• Ladderback Woodpecker

We also got to watch a kit of about 20 Birmingham Roller (I'm assuming) pigeons, who flew in circles around their presumed home, with birds frequently rolling out of the kit and returning. I identified them as rollers by their behavior. I think Mikael said he'd talked to the fellow who owns them in the neighborhood. I held forth a bit for the group on the strength of my dad having kept rollers all during my childhood, and the fact that nothing I said could be contradicted by a far-off view of the birds through binoculars. :)

Chloe managed to find two tiny frogs or toads, smaller than my thumbnail, and a skink no longer than my index finger. I got a picture of the skink on my cell phone. I never got close enough to any birds to photograph them with the phone.

Here's a link to Mikael's blog post on the morning's walk.