Robert and I went out for the three mornings of his three-day weekend, looking for migrants (particularly warblers, orioles, and tanagers) and having minimal luck. However, we did see (and hear) a lot of resident and summer birds, and at two different gardens we very much had the "birds and blooms" experience. And the community garden at the park with the festival was full of yummy-looking veggies that made me think of Kate and Leo and how much they would have enjoyed decimating the various greens available. (Not so yummy: some cabbage were hosting a large number of small pink slugs with black dots in rows down the sides. I first looked at them from a distance with my binoculars, so they looked gigantic and monstrously disgusting. Up close, they look sort of icky but like, you know, just bugs and not aliens from outer space intent on destroying everything on our planet in the slimiest way possible.)
The prettiest birds we saw were three male American goldfinches with their bright and shiny yellow-and-black suits on. If I wanted to paint these birds, I would have needed to use a yellow fluorescent highlighter to even have a chance to capture the intense brightness of their feathers. These three males were accompanied by three females, so perhaps I was not alone in being impressed by their healthy good looks.
We also found a kingfisher nest (a hole in the river bank under a bridge) and though we did not see any babies, we saw the parents fly out down the river. Any day I see a kingfisher is a very good day. Two kingfishers makes an excellent one.
Even though we struck out on migrant warblers, we did add several birds to our North Carolina bird lists. (I think keeping increasingly specific bird lists is an inevitable progression for listers. 20 years from now, I will be reporting my first sighting of a female purple finch for my Blah County 2030 backyard list.) I am currently up to 68 species for NC.
Some of the new NC birds from the weekend include:
* Tree swallow (he looked like a blue jewel on a snag over the water)
* Caspian tern (in migration - flying; it was surprising to see this one while standing in a vegetable garden)
* Wood duck (ditto)
* Indigo bunting (a resident breeder in the summer)
* Cedar waxwing (this has been a winter bird for me historically, but it's a migrant here)
* Pine warbler (not a migrant warbler - it breeds here as it does in central Texas)
(As usual, these are not my bird photos - I snagged them from various places online.)
1 comment:
I enjoyed birding with you even if it is via your blog. I only wish I could have seen them in person. Although, we do have American Goldfinches at our feeders and, yes, they are very bright and beautiful this time of year.
Post a Comment