Hickory Hill Bird Hike

Embrace what God gives ya! That's my motto as I trekked Hickory Hill Conservancy, in Cross Plains, hoping to catch sight of the elusive Pileated Woodpecker. It was not to be, for me, but the person coming down the hill as we were going up described a bird he had never seen before, and it was undoubtedly a female pileated. There was lots of tractor and chopper activity as well...and pileateds' are rather skittish birds (per my husband, I wouldn't know).

We heard and saw a number of indigo buntings, perhaps a yellow throated warbler, and heard so many sounds I wish I had had a voice recorder so we could play back and identify the birds. When I can't "shoot" birds I "shoot" wildflowers instead...so primarily I just wanted to share some fauna focused photos from last night's hike.





After the hill we ventured to the creek that meanders downtown to enjoy the trail and seek the hawk's nest I had seen on Saturday. The leaves have filled out the trees immensely in the past few days, and I could not believe that I could not find that nest - it was so plain to see a few days earlier! Oh well! More pictures...




As you can see, Kyle was bored with birding by then and preferred blasting the swarms of gnats with his super soaker, and used the cold, bubbly creek for refills. (LOL) We did spot a first...what we believe to be a hooded warbler at the end of the trail hopping around along the banks of the creek. In fact, I need to wrap up this blog entry as I plan to head back there before work in hopes of getting more identifying marks. Per the field guide behavior description - the guy we watched for some time fits this bird to a T. I am just not remembering the yellow patch around his eye - time to verify! Remember, embrace what God gives, even if it is not what you expected or hoped for!