Rice Lake - Scouting Effort

Finished with a solid hike and sky watch at Myre-Big Island I figured I would make a stop at another new to me park in Rice Lake. I didn't have much in my mind for what I could see at the park on the day, but wanted to at least add another stop and scout for possible habitat.

The entrance sign showed a Bittern (Least?) and I hoped this was indicative of the lake habitat. It certainly was. Though the park had basically shut down the entire road network space except for a single plowed dirt lot off the lake edge and a pit toilette.

I checked the lake out from a dock that was pulled up and sitting high on the banks. The lake has a very large ring of cattails and other emergent vegetation and the space looked perfect for Least Bittern habitat and related birds like Sora, etc... (I could see renting a canoe and really working the lake edges for birds at some point, maybe making a serious attempt for something like Common Gallinule to really spice up the year list.)

I picked up another Song Sparrow starting to sing and some Dark-eyed Juncos were chattering a bit as well, but the park was pretty quiet overall.

I only ended up staying for about 20 minutes as I did not have another crunchy uneven snow hike in me on the day and I had failed to stop for lunch by this time and it was already getting on towards 1PM.

I'll reserve any other comments on this park until I get a chance to really explore and look for key target species after the water melts and we get some more serious migrant action.