About a half-hour into the walk, an interesting bird popped up and perched in the open facing away from us. I noticed the eye ring and the thin wingbars, plus the bird appeared to have orange lores. I incorrectly passed off the orange lores as a lighting issue with the rising sun and didn't notice how short the tail was. I was not coming up with an identification. I then noticed a thin white crown stripe. Luckily, it stayed perched long enough for me to get these photos of it and finally realize that the bird's orange lores were real and that it was a Grasshopper Sparrow! It's the first one I've ever seen during our Fall migration.
An adult White-crowned Sparrow perched in the distance at the top of one of the numerous pear trees.
A Northern Harrier was flying low over the fields and finally came close enough for a photo.
Near the southern end of the tract, I saw four very distant birds on a neighboring shed roof, which after heavily-cropping my photos, turned out to be American Pipits.
A Merlin flew in and briefly perched atop a tree in the fencerow before dropping down and pursuing an American Goldfinch unsuccessfully. In the southeastern corner, we had a Lincoln's Sparrow and a few Swamp Sparrows.
Additional sparrows included 2 Chipping Sparrows, 4 Field Sparrows, and several White-throated Sparrows. Other notables seen during our walk were Black and Turkey Vultures, Red-tailed Hawk, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, an Eastern Phoebe, 2 Common Ravens, chickadees, Tufted Titmice, Carolina Wren, Northern Mockingbird, Eastern Bluebirds, American Robins, Cedar Waxwings, Red-winged Blackbirds, and warblers that included 3 "Eastern" Palm Warblers, a "Western" Palm Warbler, and 7 Yellow-rumped Warblers.
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