It was wonderful to go on a field trip without turning on my car’s air conditioner. The weather was wonderful. The trip was led by Chuck Kangas and included Betty Roberts, Carolyn Modeen, Frank and Pearl Shewfelt, Donna Vedvik, Sally Sabo, Andrea Nesbitt, and Chuck and Loretta Richards.

We started out north of our meeting place at Denny’s on Litchfield Road just off of I-10. There are several golf course ponds that can have a large number of ducks considering their small size. But, unfortunately the ducks hadn’t arrived yet. We managed to have good looks at several Green Herons, a Great Blue Heron, some Coots and expected desert birds.

We then went to Jackie Meck Lake. Last year we had great looks at a huge beaver and a Great Horned Owl sitting in a tree. This year they were no where to be found. We had a consolation prize by seeing an Osprey carrying a fish to a perch on top of a tree. It continued eating it paying no attention to us. But our prize sighting of the day was a Least Bittern that was sitting up in the reeds and allowed us to put our scopes on it so everyone got extremely good looks at it. Usually all one gets is a glimpse of the bird disappearing in the reeds. It’s too bad no one had a camera.