Out

A friend and I took off for the Monroe County, Illinois, levee area this morning in search of American Golden Plovers, which have shown up on the Missouri side of the Saint Louis area.

We had no luck with shorebirds but did find two Eurasian Collared Doves and one or two adult male Northern Harriers. The collared doves were life birds for me.

After we left the levee area we drove to Horseshoe Lake to look for the Harris’s Sparrow that was found on Wednesday. My friend spotted a couple of Bonaparte’s Gulls in a pond along Hwy. 255. These were my first for the year. We checked for Little Blue Herons on the 203 side of Horseshoe and along Collinsville Rd., but found none. We didn’t find the Harris’s, either.

At home

Early this afternoon an Oregon Junco made an appearance in the backyard. Although I almost never hear about these being reported in the Saint Louis area, a friend had one in his yard a few weeks ago and this is the second time I’ve seen one in mine—I suspect that they are more common here than we think and are simply being overlooked.