COMMUNITY JOURNALISM: A great day for birding

If you'd like to join our community sports team, contact J.R. Ogden at jr.ogden@thegazette.com

By Rick Hollis, community contributor

Sunday was a great day to be outside with great company and good birding.

The Iowa City Bird Clubs and friends birded the Mississippi, from Burlington south to Montrose. In Burlington, we met with two local guides and birders extraordinaire, Chuck Fuller and John Rutenbeck.

We birded many places with lovely names, starting with the Sewer at Dankwardt Park in Burlingtonand ending at Montrose Marsh in Montrose.In between, we had stopsat the Linger-Longer Rest Area, the Sacred Heart Cemetery, Sullivan Slough, the ponds near the Alliant Power Plant, Black Hawk Bottoms, Green Bay Bottoms, Heron Bend North and South, Trumpeter Marsh and places I surely forgot to note.

We ended up with 67 species (68 if youcount the Peregrine Fuller and Rutenbeck saw on the Mississippi River Bridge at Burlington before we arrived).

The highlights were two early Phoebes and a Lesser Black-backed Gull.The Phoebes maybe the first seen in Iowa this spring.Lesser Black-backeds are listed as regularly occurring species on the Iowa checklist, which means they are seen every year or nearly every year, but they are never numerous.

Passerines (songbirds) were scarce because we mainly worked the water. Waterfowl were not numerous anywhere, but we end up with more than 20 species. We picked up Eurasian Collared Doves at a regular place near a particularly odoriferous feedlot.

In the coming weeks we look forward to more and more migrants arriving.

The Iowa City Bird Club will be holding its Beginning Birders Class for adults and youth. Call or email Brad Freidhoff at the Conservation Education Center at Kent Park, (319) 645-1011 orbfreidhof@co.johnson.ia.us

Editor's note: Rick Hollis, 64, of rural North Liberty has been watching birds since his childhood and is past president and newsletter editor for the Iowa City Bird Club.