Date: 5/13/26 4:24 pm From: William Flack via groups.io <sparvophile...> Subject: Re: [NEBirds] Birding Marathon
Fellow NEBirders—
On May 8, Day 2 of Robin's and my expedition to northeastern Nebraska, we worked Burt County.
Rather tuckered out by the previous day's birding, we got off to a somewhat late start from West Point. We began our birding in the park at the western edge of Oakland. There was a track meet going on in the western portion of the park, so we didn't go that way; but the eastern part, including the small stream that runs in near the southeastern corner, was quiet and productive. We found sparrows of six species (Chipping, Clay-colored, White-crowned, Harris's, White-throated, and Lincoln's) in considerable abundance; and saw a Black-and-white Warbler nuthatching its way along a branch.
The prize there was a Louisiana Waterthrush working upstream along the edge of the creek. At that point, the creek runs between steep banks 3–6 feet high, so although we had quite a lengthy look at the bird, it was all from above: we could clearly see the tail-wagging and the upperparts, but couldn't get great looks at the underparts. The supercilium didn't obviously narrow toward the rear, but neither did it obviously widen. The underparts had a whitish background, with no obvious yellowish tinge: such yellowish would've been diagnostic for Northern, but its absence doesn't rule Northern out. We couldn't see the throat, nor could we really assesss the density of the streaking on the underparts. Our identification was based on the leg color: bright pink, even when the bird was in deep shade, and almost luminous when hit by the sun. No vocalizations.
The Black-and-white and the Louisiana were the only unusual warblers we found all day. We saw Common Yellowthroat, Northern Yellow, and Yellow-rumped in various places, but none of the less-common migrants that we'd expect at this time of year, and not even Orange-crowned. This was our experience throughout the trip: Orange-crowns on other days, but not in any kind of numbers, and almost nothing else beside those four most common species.
After Oakland, we spent considerable time at Summit Lake. First, we parked in the lot by the gate just southwest of the archery range, and walked trails: along the boundary between woods and grassland, then on trails that wandered through the woods toward the marshy ponds. There was a decent variety of birds, including the Swainson's Thrush that I wanted for my Burt County list, but no surprises. We then continued driving on the park road to its end on the west side of the southern arm of the lake. In the small parking lot there, we heard repeated descending staccato "pit-a-tuck" calls from a deciduous tree, which I recognized from Arizona experience as Summer Tanager. With a little effort, we found the bird: all red, without a cardinal's black face or crest or red triangular bill, and with a wing only a little darker than the body plumage, quite unlike a Scarlet Tanager's black wing.
It was mid-afternoon by this time, so we repaired to Tekamah for lunch at the Tipsy Pig. We then drove to the east side of the southern arm of the lake, crossed on the berm with no serious misadventures on the step-stones, and did a loop that took us up to the edge of the horse farm. We had a decent variety of birds, including seven sparrow species, but nothing surprising; and the only warbler was a single Northern Yellow.
From Summit Lake, we betook ourselves to Pelican Point RA. Our experience there was similar to what we'd had at Summit: nice variety of sparrows, but only a single warbler, a Common Yellowthroat.
There was plenty of daylight left when we finished there, and had we been younger and stronger and less worn-out, we'd have gone on to check out the park at Decatur. However, it'd been an enjoyable but a long day, and we had to make our way to Pender before we could rest. We started northwest, but had only got two or three miles when we saw what looked like two good-sized shorebirds flying to land in a plowed field. We quickly stopped and put the scopes on the birds which, fortunately, showed no inclination to fly off. They turned out to be two Pluvialis plovers; however, they were in mid-molt, which made identification challenging. There appeared to be some brown in the back and wings, which suggested American Golden- rather than Black-bellied Plover, but we couldn't be sure of that. There was still lots of white in the underparts, and in any case the birds weren't giving us good looks at the undertail coverts. Finally, I suppressed my conscience and marched out into the field in an intimidating fashion to flush the birds, which showed brown tails in flight: American Golden-Plovers.
Eight of the birds we found were new for my Burt County list, bringing it to a total of 156 species: Northern Bobwhite, American Golden-Plover, Solitary Sandpiper, Swainson's Thrush, Clay-colored Sparrow, Louisiana Waterthrush, Black-and-white Warbler, and Summer Tanager.
Robin had only birded Burt County on two previous occasions, so her list of new birds was considerably longer than mine: [deep breath] American Wigeon, Northern Bobwhite, Chimney Swift, American Golden-Plover, Spotted Sandpiper, Solitary Sandpiper, Franklin's Gull, Black Tern, Osprey, Red-headed Woodpecker, Downy Woodpecker, Eastern Kingbird, Eastern Warbling Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Purple Martin, Cedar Waxwing, Carolina Wren, Northern House Wren, Gray Catbird, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Bluebird, Swainson's Thrush, American Goldfinch, Clay-colored Sparrow, Field Sparrow, Harris's Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Baltimore Oriole, Louisiana Waterthrush, Black-and-white Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Northern Yellow Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Summer Tanager, and Rose-breasted Grosbeak. Her new total for the county was 102 species. Burt was the last county in which she hadn't seen American Goldfinch, making it her 12th 93-county bird.
