BIRDING SPOTS

where, when, and what to find

The Links at Overlake

posted by Tim Avery at
on Sunday, March 29, 2015 

Links at Overlake from Google Maps User


Description:
The Links at Overlake is a Scottish links style course featuring 11 water hazards, 79 sand bunkers and beautiful native grass measuring a total of 7,248 yards.  The links pond and lake habitat combined with grassland and shrubsteppe created an interesting mix of habitat that resembles native Utah valley habitat.  The fairways and greens of course are grass so things aren't quite perfect.  In terms of birdable golf courses, this is a great course to go birding while golfing at.  There are actually 14 ponds on the course  which is surrounded by grasslands, farms, and now some houses.

Birding:
I've only been to the links one time, but on a windy cold May morning I tallied 52 species while focusing on golf.  Some notable things were that there were at least 3 species of shorebirds nesting along the course edges: LONG-BILLED CURLEW, WILLET, and KILLDEER.  The birds were very approachable and seemed used to people being there.  All 6 regularly occurring species of SWALLOW in Utah might be seen here during migration and during poor weather, are easy to view low over the water.  The numerous ponds create lots of habitat for various waterbirds.  11 species of waterfowl were seen here including GREATER SCAUP--the water on some ponds is deep enough for divers, and more species of ducks probably pass through here.  CINNAMON TEAL, NORTHERN SHOVELER, and LESSER SCAUP were all fairly common in May.  3 species of GREBES and as well as FORSTER'S TERNS can be found here using the water to fish.  Along the course expect to see RED-WINGED and YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD, WESTERN MEADOWLARK, SAY'S PHOEBE, and WESTERN KINGBIRD.  If you come here to go golfing, you'll end up doing a lot of birding--and I can't say that's a bad thing!

Directions:
From the Flying J off I-80 Exit 99 take UT-36 south for 6.8 miles. Turn right on to Cimmarron way and go 1 mile. Turn left onto 400 west and go .8 mile to the turn on your right to the golf course parking lot.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Back to Previous




SEARCH LOCATIONS

View List of All 1,300+ Spots

VIEW HOTSPOTS



Abbreviations



SUBMIT A HOTSPOT

  • Have a hot spot you want to submit information for? You can become a contributor and create pages for the database by sending an email to utah.birders@gmail.com. Or if you jsut want, you can fill out the form from the link below and we can add your spot to the data base for you!



TWITTERING

FOLLOW US ON TWITTER


Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]



UTAH BIRDERS FLICKR POOL


    SEE MORE AND SHARE ON FLICKR