At the Meer today....

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Pied-billed Grebe--- 1/1/09 --photo by DAVID SPEISER - www.lilibirds.com

Malcolm Morris writes today:

While watching the continuing drake pintail on the east side of the Meer at around 11 o'clock this morning, Tom Perlman and I had a yellowlegs make a loop around the east end of the Meer very low and close in front of us as if looking to land. Unfortunately it didn't land but disappeared around the bend of the Meer to the west. We believe it was a lesser yellowlegs based on size. We looked for it around the Meer, down the Loch and around the Pool but cdn't find it. Nether the Meer nor Pool have good shallow areas so it may have gone south to the better areas in the Ramble. Look out for it.

Also in the Meer were coots, one pie-billed grebe and the usual shovelers, ruddy ducks, gadwalls and mallards. Four wood ducks were on the Pool. Other good birds were a clay-colored sparrow id'd by Tom on the east path up the Great Hill from the Pool, a single fox sparrow in the fenced in area behind the bathrooms on the great hill, and several winter wrens, field and swamp sparrows, chippies, palm and yellow-rumped warblers, both kinglets, and lots of phoebes.