Birding in Rock Creek Park, DC
When : April 2018 0700 Weather: Cool, 15-20C
In DC for a convention and found 2 hours to take the 20 min cab ride to Rock Creek Park which had been recommended by other bird blogs. We headed to the Maintenance Road NW car park which was where we actually saw most things, rather than the area behind the maintenance yard accessed by the narrow trail next to the tower.
There were so many things flying around the car park trees at this time…
The ubiquitous American Robin bade us a warm welcome!
Lincoln Sparrow?
Beautifully coloured red bellied woodpecker….the red belly not apparent in this picture.
Here we can see the red belly more apparently
house sparrow?
?juvenile purple finch
Dark eyed Junco
Mourning dove on ground
Starling nesting
Starling perching
tufted titmouse
blue jay
House sparrow
The wooded forest around the the maintenance yard…
and then this brilliant red bird appeared…..a northern cardinal…a lifer for me…
Male northern cardinal
female northern cardinal
another female northern cardinal
white throated sparrow
Here a much clearer view of the savannah sparrow with its characteristic yellow patches in fron of the eyes
Carolina Wren
another view of the Carolina wren
Rock Creek Park Nature Centre…..
and the final bird of the morning was this beautiful white breasted nuthatch
who was hunting and brought breakfast back for his brood
and then resting contently…these sightinggs were near the Rock Creek Nature Centre Building
I’m so grateful for fellow birders’ blogs and writeups when they give exact locations where to bird….thank you! The car park at the maintenance yard was a wonderful resource of new sightings for us and in two hours we really did quite well. Highly recommended! Thanks also to Bok Kaufman for help in identifying birds.
The Natural Traveller 