I joined

the meetup.com website the other day. This site allows you to join different groups that interest you. I joined the Southern Nevada Photographers group. The general purpose is to allow members to set up events. Ihad posted that I was going to the Clark County Wetlands Preserve on Thursday. One of the members replied that he would like to go also, so we met there and did some more...you guessed it, BIRD SPOTTING!

The wetlands

When I first went to the Wetlands Preserve back in 2007 I remember walking along the path and seeing a bird jump up. I only saw it for about 2-3 seconds, and it was gone. I knew it was a raptor type bird(or so I thought), and that it was whiteish. With a 2-3 second view of the bird it really could have been anything from an Osprey to a Black Capped Night Heron. White, Black and Grey, all blurred together in 2-3 seconds....Could describe either. Now I know for sure it WAS an Osprey as seen below:
(Time to eat some crow...I'm now sure that this is NOT an Osprey)


But i'm getting ahead of myself.....
The first bird I was was a Orange Capped Warbler:

I've seen these before in Michigan, but until today I thought they were Wilsons Warblers. They are not. Not enough black in them.

This is an unknown Sparrow:

I admit it, I'm too lazy to try to figure it out....lol



Other than to say this is a Sparrow, I'm not going to even try:


This is a seed of some kind. They were all over the park. You will see many of them in my other pictures. I don't know what they are.


Again, whaty I believe to be an Orange Crowned Warbler.


This, a new bird to me, is a Virden:






I walked about .5-3 miles by this point. I stopped for a smoke break. Everyone know excercising and smoking go together right????? While standing there I looked up and saw this:


This is an Osprey:

A new one on me. Never photographed one before.

This is another un known Raptor. I do not think it is a Red Tailled Hawk as it is missing the red/brown areas on the leading egdes of th wings:





This is a Snowy Egret. Not to be confused with a Cattle egret, much more orange on the beak, or a Great Egret, a bird 2-3 times larger.




A Common Morehead.

This is a Great Egret:



Note the black beak and, although hard to tell in the photo, it is 2-3 time larger tha the Snowey Egret.


some of the f;;ood damage from last week:





Although in this picture it seems, to me anyways, to have the face of an owl, it is, I think a Raptor.

I thought at first, it couldn't be a bird, it must be debris from the flooding. I was wrong:












the King Bird...








Un Known Sparow:


Green Winged teal:

Clark County Wetlands Preserve

On Saturday Karen and I decided to scope out the eastern side of Vegas. I kind of also wanted to see if I could locate the C.C. Wetlands Preserve. I knew it was off of Tropicana, but I wasn't sure where. We eventually found it and decided that neither of us were ready to go hiking at that time as it was in the afternoon and very hot out. On the way though, we did discover something that we have not seen in Vegas before, a party store:

Karen asked the clerk about the lack of party stores in Vegas and she asked us what part of town we lived in. When Karen told her she laughed and said you wouldn't find any in that part of town.....

We continued on that day to Lake Las Vegas. Lake Las Vegas has recently filed for Bankruptcy with bedts estimated at between 500 million and 1 billion dollars.










Sunday I finally made it out the the Clark County Wetlands Preserve. I must say it is a pretty nice park. I spent about 2 hours out there. About 11AM it just became too hot!


As shown below the park is in the middle of renovation:


It somewhat reminded me of Crosswinds Marsh back in Michigan, albeit much smaller.


It is actually part of the Las Vegas Wash. It was created to help control and clean the water that comes through the wash:


This is a Great Egret flying and in the backgroud is what I believe to be a Snowy Egret:


Below is a Great Egret just about to land:


Here is a Blue Heron and the Great Egret.


Here are some Glossy Ibis landing in the mash area:


Here is a closer shot of the Blue Heron:


I really only explored about half of the park. There are quite a few trails available, most of which I missed this time.

I also spotted a hummmingbird, many swallows, and some sort of raptor/bird of prey that was greyish in color. I was un able to get pictures of any of them.