Gilbert Water Ranch - 2 Dec 2012

About two posts back, I mentioned my search for the little Winter Wren that has made an appearance at the Gilbert Riparian Water Preserve and how my first encounter was but a brief glimpse of this little rare dynamo. I decided to try to find it once again on Sunday morning.  I worked my way to its regular territory and found another birding friend, Pete Moulton, there also looking.  He had not yet seen it and after waiting for it to make an appearance I moved on and later came back to find Pete in the same vicinity and he mentioned that he had seen it but not very well so we decided to wait it out again and after about 15 minutes, the little devil showed up on the opposite side of the camping area and flew right in front of us to the other side and into the thick cover.  But it did not take long and it finally came out and our cameras started clicking.  It did this twice in the same spot and our photos show that it had captured an insect and dining on it.  What a great little bundle of energy for this little bird.  Field guides list it as 3½ to 4 inches in length, and that short little stubby tail sticking up really give this bird some character.  Here are some of my photos that this little one presented to me.

 

Winter Wren

Winter Wren

Winter Wren

 

Winter Wren

 

  Winter Wren

 

Of course, I found a lot of other birds out there, but the Winter Wren was pretty special.  Some of the other photos that I captured include this Red-winged Blackbird, feeding on something that I have not figured out.  Also saw many Anna's Hummingbirds and added one of them to my photo album this trip.  A Northern Mockingbird put on a brief show by fluffing up and craning its neck.

 

Red-winged Blackbird

 

Anna's Hummingbird

 

Northern Mockingbird

 

Among the water birds were a Great Egret roosting in a tree, an American Avocet, a Greater Yellowlegs and a Killdeer all wading in the water in various ponds.

 

Great Egret

 

American Avocet

 

Greater Yellowlegs

 

Killdeer

 

And of course the American White Pelicans are still around and this capture is just begging for a caption.

 

American White Pelicans

 

The resident Osprey was standing guard over Pond 7.

Osprey