Marten River – May 27

Well the rain returned yesterday evening and continued overnight and continued off and on most of the day.  However, about 5 this afternoon the sun broke through for about an hour.  Taking advantage of this break in rain, I took a walk on along the beach.  There were very large numbers of Franklin and a few Ring-billed Gulls moving about.  In addition, there were several Spotted Sandpiper running along the water edge and a single male Common Merganser sitting on the sand.  When he saw my approach he headed for the water and was soon safely off shore.  Meanwhile, I notice a Red-tailed Hawk patrolling the edge of the forest and I’m sure checking the beach area as well in hopes of an opportunity for a nice supper.  In addition, there were many American Crows on the beach and Common Raven sitting high atop a fir tree keeping watch.  Upon returning to the forested area I could hear numerous Yellow-rumped Warbles singing and a lone White-throated Sparrow foraging on the ground.  It appears that this short break brought out the birds.  I heard a couple of Ovenbirds singing in the bush and saw my first American Redstart for this trip.  All in all, it was a nice walk in the sun after a very cloudy, rainy day.

Earlier I received a call from my friend Barry Noret.  He informed me that one of the administrators of our Birds of Texas Facebook Page had taken over the page and removed him as an administrator and several other of the administrator as well.  Since I was the originator of the page I could not be removed and so I went and removed all of the remaining co-administrators to regain control of this page.  The page now has over 22,500 members and is a page many people enjoy.  So, in response, I set Barry back up as a co-administrator.  Barry has been involved since nearly since the page’s inception.  Since I am traveling and have intermittent access to the internet I have asked Barry to take over and carefully choose who we make as other administrators.  Hopefully this will solve the problem and things on the page will return to normal.

Tomorrow the Festival here at Slave Lake begins with a pancake dinner at 6:30 followed by some bird walks and later some programs with a hamburger cook out at noon.  Sunday there is also an abbreviated schedule.  I will be leaving here on Monday.