At exactly 1201 today the partial clouds broke and the sun came through clear and bright.  Unfortunately, at 1200 today, we ended our tour of Haehnle and Dalton Rd. area.  But the six JAS members had a good outing this morning. Not too cold and just a little bit of wind to make sure we weren't too comfortable.

We started at Hahenle Sanctuary and walked through the overlook prairie and back into the wooded trail.  Continuing into the prairie in Unit #2 I showed the group where our contractor is working on removing the buckthorn in our fen area.  He arrived right on queue and we got the see the grinding in action.  

View to the north into the fen                                                             (Steve Jerant)

We returned back to the overlook through to back loop trail.  Our species list was a bit skinny.  The Northern Shrike I spotted yesterday was nowhere to be seen today and there was not too many songbirds about.  Not even the bluebirds came out for us.

Species list:

Buteo sp.  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  1
Downy Woodpecker  1
Northern Flicker  2
Blue Jay  1
American Crow  2
Black-capped Chickadee  1

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S102297728

From Hahenle, we caravanned (I'll be glad when this COVID thing is done) over to the Hawkins & Dalton Rds. area in search of raptors.  With the snow on the road, I did not want to stop the 5 card train without any shoulders on the road.

We only got two Red-tailed hawks and flushed a group of Mourning Doves.  At the turn in Dalton we had an eagle far out to the east but could not get a good read on it. 

Our Next tour is at Dahlem on 02/22 at 9AM.

View to the east from turn @ Dalton Rd.                                             (Steve Jerant)

Species list:

Mourning Dove  24
Red-tailed Hawk  2
eagle sp.  1
Red-bellied Woodpecker  2
Blue Jay  1
American Crow  11
Dark-eyed Junco  1
Northern Cardinal  2

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S102297779