The weather for our group’s birding along North Shore Lake Hodges Trail was coolish with warming sun under scattered clouds when we arrived by around 9:30 a.m.; and rising to around 80 degrees with a light ocean breeze by late morning-early afternoon.  Signs of spring were all around us, with lush-green ground cover and a variety of flowers blooming after all the winter rains.  Leaves were unfolding on willows and pollen-laden catkins were hanging from the live oaks trees.  One of the first birds we heard singing was an adult male Bullock’s Oriole – his musical notes drawing our attention to his perch atop a tall eucalyptus tree.

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       Other bird songs and calls from within the oak woodlands and other lakeshore vegetation included the phrases and trills of White-crowned and Song Sparrows, House Wrens, Common Yellowthroats, Spotted Towhees, Mockingbirds, and a White breasted Nuthatch.  The latter was busily hunting for food on the gnarly-barked trunk and branches of an old oak tree.  We observed three kinds of woodpeckers: a Northern Flicker and a number of Nuttall’s and the gregarious Acorn Woodpeckers.  The latter two species were hammering their strong beaks in search of wood-boring insects or pecking out nest sites in which to raise their offspring.

On the lake were a few of the large Western and Clark’s Grebes; and we heard the strange, haunting call of a Pied-billed Grebe, which the field-guide author Roger Tory Peterson aptly described as sounding like kuk-kuk-cow-cow-cow-cowp-cowp.  And at one place on the lakeshore, we watched a flock of Red-winged Blackbirds – the males showing off their yellow-bordered, brilliant-red epaulets.  And we spotted a flock of seven White-faced Ibis flying overhead.

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         Though spring is not quite officially here yet, we certainly appreciated some early sights and sounds of springtime around this reservoir oasis.  Docent Jack Friery led our walk – informing us not only about birds but also some of the flowers and other plants along the way.  After our walk, we enjoyed a delicious Mexican lunch at the lakeside Hernandez Hideaway restaurant.

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         (By the way, in case you may wonder why this walk was scheduled on a Wednesday, rather than the usual second Tuesday of the month, it is because the park is open to the public only on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays -- the latter two of which are too crowded for effective birdwatching.)