Village Creek Drying Beds, etc.

Today I birded Village Creek Drying Beds (Arlington, TX) with an out-of-town visiting birder and our Fort Worth Audubon field trip chair. Highlights included about 13 Wilson's Snipe all together on one of the few suitable areas, a female Common Goldeneye, and zillions of other ducks (N. Shovelers, N. Pintails, Gadwalls, Ring-necked Ducks, Green-winged Teal, Buffleheads, Ruddy Ducks, American Wigeon, Lesser Scaup, Mallards) plus a small flock of Canada Geese. We checked out the Monk Parakeet colony in Fort Worth, stopped by our house to see our Rufous Hummingbird, and then checked out the spillway area at Bryant-Irvin/20. There in addition to the usual supply of wintering ducks and Ring-billed Gulls was a lone wintering Black-bellied Whistling-Duck (I recall that there was one there last winter too).