Excellent Birding in the OC, 12/3/22

My first goal of the day was to try and track down the GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE originally located by Ronnie DiLorenzo on Monday of this week. I went to Wickham Lake first thing; unfortunately all of the geese were already picking up and heading out. My consolation prize was seeing my first American Tree Sparrows of the season. I left the lake and headed to State School Road, where I found a small group of Canada Geese, but no GWFG.

I checked some of the local lakes for any good birds, but did not find anything out of the ordinary. I went back to State School Road, and sure enough the GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE was present, up front of the flock and looking beautiful. I put the word out and then snapped a bunch of photos. GWFG is always a favorite of mine, and on top of that it was an Orange County year bird.

In the afternoon, I headed over to the Newburgh Waterfront. I had a couple of goals: one to follow up on Bruce Nott’s report of an ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER from yesterday, and two, to try for some interesting gulls. I succeeded with the OCWA, finding a relatively cooperative bird on the trail near the large sign that faces towards the river. I was pretty excited because it was an Orange County life bird for me, as well as, of course, a year bird.

Gulling was less exciting, as I only found the three expected species for our area (Ring-billed, Herring, and Great Black-backed). My day was capped off as I drove home on Route 84 through the Stewart Forest area. I was driving into the sunset and the skies were filled with absolutely massive flocks of mixed blackbirds. It was quite a sight, too bad I was driving on the highway and couldn’t document it.