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Recorders Report April is such a busy month as the land is turning green, spring migrants arrive and winter migrants leave. The redbuds changed from their showy display to the simple, leafy, green dress of summer as they fade into the background while the tulips, lilacs, and Chickasaw plum thickets finish their period of blooming. The forest has complex multicolored shades of green from the trees in bud, to those producing seeds, to those with leaf buds, to those with full summer green. The mid-sized prairie remnants remain in their winter shades of gold, yellow, and browns while the maintained grasslands are beginning to show some intermixing of green. Previously burned areas are quickly turning green. According to the old saying, April showers bring May flowers, but would there be any April showers in 2006? On Saturday, April 1st Jimmy Woodward led a field trip in Oklahoma City around Lake Hefner. The group included Max Fuller, Ed Boyd, Jerry Vanbebber, Nancy Vicars, Bill and Susan Schmidt, Eric and Carol Enwalle and Pat Garrison. They found 79 species, a great start for the April monthly list. Some of the species were Dark-eyed Junco, Harris’s Sparrows, Fox Sparrows, Vesper Sparrows, Yellow-rumped Warblers, Northern Rough-winged Swallows, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Greater and Lesser Scaup, Bufflehead, Common, Red-breasted and Hooded Mergansers, Pied-billed, Horned and Eared Grebes, Sharp-shinned Hawk, Bonaparte’s Gulls, Forster’s Terns, and Eastern Phoebe. On April 2nd Pat Velte found a bizarre gull at Lake Hefner with a deformed bill, and yet, the gull seemed to be in normal condition. On April 3rd Karen Bays in Edmond (south Logan County) found a Northern Parula in her yard along with singing Brown Thrashers, and fussy Bewick’s Wrens. Chris Butler had his first Chimney Swifts circling his house in Choctaw on the 4th, and Patti Muzny found them above her house in South Oklahoma City on the 8th. On the Wednesday morning filed trip to Lake Hefner, Nancy Vicars reports a Lincoln’s Sparrow, 4 Orange-crowned Warblers, 4 Brown Thrashers, 3 Cattle Egrets, 1 Little Blue Heron, 1 American Avocet, and 1 Baird’s Sandpiper. On Wednesday evening Nancy, Pat Velte and Terri Underhill went to Lake Stanley Draper and found lots of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, several Black and White Warblers, a White-eyed Vireo, 4 Broad-winged Hawks, a Greater Roadrunner, 2 Black Vultures, and 1 Barred Owl and for the grand finale they found the Eastern Screech Owl in Nancy’s ‘backyard’. Nancy also has a Carolina Chickadee and House Finch sitting on eggs. The next morning Nancy heard her first House Wren of the season. Jim and Doris Arterburn stopped at Lake Hefner on Sunday, April 09 and found an adult Red-throated Loon along with 11 Common Loons and about 2,000 Double-breasted Cormorants. At the home of Donald and Karen Bays in south Logan County on April 9th there were 27 species including White-breasted Nuthatch, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, a Nashville Warbler, a Spotted Towhee, and a Cedar Waxwing. The first Osprey was seen at Arcadia Lake in Edmond on the 8th by Terri and Pat, and on the 10th at Lake Hefner they saw Osprey along with 6 American Avocets, hundreds of Franklin’s Gulls, 2 American White Pelicans, and numerous Great, Cattle and Snowy Egrets. Scissortail flycatchers are beginning to show around the area with the first in Piedmont on Monday, April 10th ant the fist at County Line and Hefner roads on Tuesday the 11th. On April 12th the Wednesday birding group went to the Myriad Gardens and Nancy Vicars reports a Nashville Warbler, several Lincoln and Field Sparrows, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, and several Orange-crowned Warblers as well as the normal residents. On April 13 Pat Velte and Randy Anderson report the removal of large 20- to 30-foot trees cottonwoods, willows, grasses, etc. along the north side of the west side of Lake Hefner. Donna Mackiewicz reports a Cooper’s Hawk brooding in a pine tree west of Hobie Point/YMCA sailing site on Lake Hefner. Three Black-necked Stilts were reported by Euelda Sharp at Lake Overholser on the 16th. At Lake Hefner on the 15th Randy and Lisa Anderson found 42 Least Sandpipers and 6 Semipalmated Sandpiper and on the 16th they found 2 Yellow-headed Blackbirds, a Yellow-rumped Warbler, an Eastern Kingbird, 3 Bufflehead, and an Osprey. On the 19th Richard Gunn found Spotted Sandpipers at Lake Hefner. On the 20th Nancy Vicars reports a Willet, Eastern and Western Kingbirds, at least 3 Ospreys, four Common Loons in breeding plumage, a mama Killdeer with on an egg in her nest along Fisherman’s Road, Warbling Vireos and Chimney Swifts. On the 24th Randy and Lisa report 29 Forester’s Terns, a Wilson’s Phalarope, 9 Greater Yellowlegs, 2 Lesser Yellowlegs, 33 Long-billed Dowitchers, 7 Semipalmated Sandpiper, a Wilson’s Snipe, 4 White-rumped Sandpiper, 5 Willet, 10 Spotted Sandpipers, White-faced Ibis, a Pied-billed Grebe, and a Belted Kingfisher. On the 26th Dora Webb had two dozen Cedar Waxwings taking advantage of their wave sprinkler to bathe and flutter about in the water among the leaves of their river birch tree. On the 28th Joe Grzybowski stopped at Lake Hefner about 1:00pm and found White-faced Ibis, Semiplamated Plover, about 35 American Avocet, Semiplamated, Baird’s, Pectoral, and Stilt Sandpipers, 10-12 Wilson’s Phalarope, Northern Orioles, a female Red-breasted Merganser and a Neotropic Cormorant. On the 29th Joe also found a Marbled Godwit, Western Sandpipers, 3 Bonaparte’s Gulls, Pied-billed Grebe, a Northern Pintail, a Redhead, 2 Lesser Scaup, a few Ruddy Ducks, 3 Sanderlings, two Snowy Plover, Chipping Sparrows and Yellow Warblers. A Piping Plover was reported on the South Canadian River on the 22nd by Richard Gunn, and Joe Grzybowski found one at Lake Hefner on the 28th and 29th. On May 7th Randy and Lisa Anderson saw 2 Piping Plovers at Lake Overholser. The total species reported for April is 130. After several hot days including 98 degrees F on April 17th the temperatures dropped. On April 28th a long, gentle, soaking rain began and after several days it brought a total of around 2.5 inches. I appreciate those who help provide the history of central Oklahoma birds by turning in their reports of bird species seen at home and in the field and I can be contacted by email at emkok@earthlink.net, leave a message at 405-373-2738 or mail to PO Box 291, Piedmont, OK 73078. Monthly backyard reports are welcome. Esther M. Key
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