Double Trouble SP 4/10--Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Some birds you go looking for, some birds you just run into. The latter, I think, are more fun. 

A number of years ago, Greg Prelich discovered a Louisiana Waterthrush at Double Trouble SP, along a slow-moving canal. At the time, LOWA was, if not a rarity, an extremely infrequent visitor to the county. I got that bird, and annually, it seems, Louie shows up at Double Trouble, an odd place for one, since they seem to prefer fast-moving streams. Today, I went there to see if I could turn one up--I haven't for the last couple of years--and I concentrated on both that canal and the parallel Cedar Creek, which does move with speed, especially now with the water coming out over the spillway from Ore Pond. I looked assiduously. I was very patient. And I didn't find one. 

Now, I was also thinking that those pine and cedar lined trails would be a good place to pick up a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, but mostly what I saw and heard were Pine Warblers. I varied my route today and walked in the woods on a trail that runs besides the Parkway (Parkway Access Road, it's called, though there is no Parkway access) and aside from a few chickadees and a dove, it was dead in there. After that, I shrugged my shoulders and just birded. 

I was doing a big "S" around the 3 bogs in back (Platt, Sweetwater, and one I don't know the name of) when I heard a familiar buzz. I saw a bird in a small cedar on the Sweetwater trail, but out hopped a Swamp Sparrow.  But I still I heard that little buzz and looking into the no-name bog, in the reeds and bare twigs, where I wouldn't expect to find one (although I suppose gnats are just as likely to be there as in the woods) I found the gnatcatcher actively jumping around, making warblers look sluggish. 

Aside from that bird, everything else today was expected:

34 species
Canada Goose  5
Mallard  2
Mourning Dove  1
Killdeer  1     Mud Dam Reservoir
Laughing Gull  2
Turkey Vulture  1
Bald Eagle  1     Ore Pond on power line tower
Downy Woodpecker  1
Hairy Woodpecker  1     Heard Mud Dam
Northern Flicker  5
Eastern Phoebe  4
American Crow  1
Fish Crow  2
Carolina Chickadee  4
Tufted Titmouse  2
Tree Swallow  7
White-breasted Nuthatch  1
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher  1
Carolina Wren  1
Eastern Bluebird  2
American Robin  3
House Finch  1
American Goldfinch  2
Chipping Sparrow  3
Field Sparrow  1
Dark-eyed Junco  5
Song Sparrow  1
Swamp Sparrow  1     Sweetwater Lane
Eastern Towhee  1
Red-winged Blackbird  1
Brown-headed Cowbird  5
Pine Warbler  13
Yellow-rumped Warbler  1
Northern Cardinal  4