Saturday, March 29, 2008 - Gavin's Point Dam Birding

Today, I went on a trip with the Loess Hills Audubon Society to Gavin's Point Dam near Yankton, SD. Although it was rather windy out a few good birds were still around. I wasparticularly happy to be going on this trip because I was taking along a new and young birder with us. We saw many birds especially on Lake Yankton below the dam. We saw at least 300 Red-breasted Mergansers, 1 Common Loon, 3 Eared Grebe, 4-5 Double-crested Cormorant, 2 Great Blue Herons,1 Lesser Yellowlegs, and an assortment of other water birds while scoping the area. We then went to the powerhouse on the dam to look for gulls. When we got there we didn't see much, only a few Ring-billed and Herring Gulls we around. After that we decided to go to lunch. We had lunch at a privately owned cabin on the lake, which an Audubon member owns. We saw a few birds on the feeder at the cabin including Red-breasted Nuthatch and Purple Finch. I went out and got to see the nuthatch up close, which was also neat. To conclude our day of birding, we scoped the main lake from the tall cliffs that are at the edge of the lake. We saw few birds with Common Loon and Belted Kingfisher being the most interesting. After we were done there we headed for home and talked on the way home about the birds we saw.