BIRDING MILLER ISLAND
A great day at Miller Island! Some days are not what one expects, then BAM a great one comes along.
Today Nancy and I birded Miller Island, just five miles from home, one of our favorite quickie birding spots. We have been monitoring what we think to be the same two families of Sandhill Cranes for at least three years. We get lucky about fifty percent of the time and spot them somewhere in the area. Today we hit the jackpot, we found one of the families with two half grown chicks. They were feeding within fifty feet of the roadway. We were able to watch them for several minutes without distressing them. They were still feeding in the same location as we left the area.
We sighted two other Sandhill families, five birds in all, at a greater distance.
Although the Sandhills eclipsed all our other sightings, we did spot: one Red Tail Hawk, one Northern Harrier, several Canada Geese, two Killdeer, several Red Wing Blackbirds, one Ring Necked Pheasant, and two Great Egrets.