Greenstone Hollow Bird Walk – 10/8/22 – Submitted by Chris Fisher
Seventeen hardy souls turned up at 8am on a beautiful but cool (48ºF) fall morning to wander around Greenstone Hollow.  We spent about the first half hour watching a variety of birds along both sides of Ridge Blvd near the entrance to the refuge.  A Crow, lots of Blue Jays, a large flock of Cedar Waxwings, Mallards, Mourning Doves, a House Finch, Swamp Sparrows and Eastern Phoebes were all present around the North and South Beaver Ponds.  We then walked to the Maple Grove Overlook, on to the Old Farm Rd., the Chickadee Trail and the North Blackbird Marsh Overlook where we picked up additional birds – Red-bellied, Downy and Pileated Woodpeckers and a Northern Flicker; a Red-tailed Hawk and Turkey Vulture; an American Robin and an unidentified Thrush; White-throated, Song and Swamp Sparrows and couple of Eastern Bluebirds.   After visiting the butterfly garden we crossed to the South side of Ridge Boulevard and followed the Twisted Tree and Wood Thrush trails back to the South Beaver Marsh overlook. Along the way we saw Catbirds, an Eastern Towhee that several people (and Merlin) heard but we couldn’t coax out, and pretty good looks at a juvenile Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.  At the Beaver Marsh overlook we saw several more sparrows, another Turkey Vulture, Yellow-rumped Warblers and woodpeckers. At this point it was about 10:20 and we’d gone past our 2 hour walk time.  Most people had to leave, but an intrepid group of 4 of us then walked all the rest of the trails on the north side of the road – mostly just to explore the refuge.  However we did get some really good looks at a Hermit Thrush, some more Yellow-rumped Warblers, Chickadees and a couple of Red-tailed Hawks playing against the blue sky.
Altogether we spent about 3-½ hours and walked just about 2 miles.  Special thanks to Abby Gundrum and Diane Fisher for helping to keep track of all the birds seen and to Abby for submitting the report to E-bird.  Below is a list of the birds seen and the participants on the walk.