300

6 species to go with an entire week to go birding.  Not a bad situation to be in. I go to join the Dallas CBC at White Rock Lake with Matt DuRoss, an old high school teacher of mine. We met up at 5:15 off of West Lawther near White Rock to look for owls at Cox Cemetery. Within about 5 minutes we had an Easter Screech Owl flying over and we got excellent looks at it. We would hear another one later on in the morning as well.

West Lawther Drive is a really great spot for ducks as you get to the north end of the lake. I never birded there in the past, and I was really surprised at the great views you could get of the lake. Hooded Mergansers were present, which is so weird to me because I could not find these birds to save my life, but now they're showing up everywhere. We got a highlight of the day, a late Common Yellowthroat.

Our next was the bountiful Sunset Bay on the east side of the lake. Sunset Bay is always full of birds and it's a great place to get close views of American White Pelicans. This was also where the American Black Duck had been seen in 2017 and 2018. The group saw a Red-breasted Merganser that I unfortunately didn't see, but we had the usual mix of species outside of that. I did get a year bird in a Song Sparrow, which put me up to 297 including a Forster's Tern. 4 more to go, and we had plenty of time left in the day. The real highlight is the field and forest to the northeast of Sunset Bay. It was very productive.

The lighting is awful, but there is bird #300. A Fox Sparrow.

The first bird I got glass on was a Harris's Sparrow, a really great find. I was especially happy because it meant I didn't have to look for them at LLELA. We also had Eastern Bluebird, Blue-headed Vireo, and Eastern Towhee. American Goldfinches flew into view. 299. FOX SPARROW! 300! I let out a deep breath of relief. 300 birds in a year is pretty good. It may not break any records, but it's a cool milestone.

Afterwards we went to the field by Boy Scout Hill on Mockingbird. We were hoping to walk through the tall grass to get LeConte's Sparrow, but the grass had been cut and only Savannah's were present. We ended the day at the spillway to try and get the Iceland Gull, and we may have had it. It also could have been a Herring Gull, and I thought it was too close to call. I don't care, though. I saw 300 birds in 2019, that is more than enough.

The mystery gull. I'm pretty sure this is a Herring Gull but there was an Iceland lurking in the area.