This past weekend, Robert and I went out looking for migrants (and summer birds). Robert really wanted to see some warblers (as did I), and I had a special hankering for orioles and tanagers. We spent 3 hours on trails near the university and saw a total of 35 species. I was disappointed on the tanager front, but we did see four species of warbler and one oriole:
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| Yellow-rumped warbler (myrtle subspecies) |
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| Black and white warbler |
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| American redstart |
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| Ovenbird |
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| Baltimore oriole |
I also had an eerie precog thing going with birds. Several times, I commented that we hadn't seen a given species of bird that we expected to see (e.g., ruby-crowned kinglet, wood thrush, carolina wren, white-eyed vireo) and one appeared within a couple of minutes. We were also doing surprisingly well (by our standards) at identifying birds by sound. So all and all, a fun and successful outing.
The weather was cloudy and in the 50's/60's, which felt absolutely wonderful. Today it's up to the mid-80's, to which I say BAH.
3 comments:
You had so much fun and such a lovely day to do it. We've been watching goldfinches, white throated sparrows, doves, house finches, mockingbirds, cardinals at our feeders. The goldfinches are new and eat twice a day. They are so pretty - it's been fun to watch them.
Mom, glad to hear things have been lively at your feeders. When I see eastern towhees, I always think of that winter a few years ago that you had eastern and spotted towhees at your feeders together. Until living in NC, we only ever saw towhees at your place. Now I see them (and hear them - "drink you teeeeeeeeea") in my apartment parking lot all the time.
On Friday's briefer walk, we saw the world's most gorgeous male American goldfinch. We saw some females on Saturday and gave them directions to the other place so they could check him out.
We saw white-throated sparrows and song sparrows on our outing - it's been surprising living somewhere with summer sparrows. We've gotten very used to the white-throats' "old sam peabody peabody peabody" call (in the north, this is rendered "oh sweet canada canada canada").
Minnesota doesn't get northern mockingbirds! They're northern by mockingbird standards, it seems, but not that northern. Snowy owl, however...
I'd love to see a snowy owl. Who knew you would have to move to Minnesota to see one!
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