Sunday, October 19, 2014

Mount Pleasant Farm Bird Walk

A beautiful day, especially earlier in the morning before the wind picked up, for the congenial participants. Nothing super awesome but we found plenty of nice birds; we also did not find a number of expected migrants, such as yellow-bellied sapsucker. Overall, the birding was fairly active a good deal of the time. We had 51 species. Probably Lincoln's Sparrow was our bird of the day b/c of the fantastic and lengthy views we had. Beautifully marked and colored--and the head, close up, in sunlight, is crisp and unique, subtly colored. 

Other nice birds: osprey, pileated, bald eagle, raven, winter wren, BROWN CREEPER, black-throated-blue warbler, both kinglets, and at least EIGHT purple finches (2 male, 6 female).


PS--I forgot to mention the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak atop a tree with a Robin and Cedar Waxwing--near the bridge to the swale. It's considered by eBird to be rare/late right now; it wasn't on the eBird checklist, which is why I forgot it earlier. Thanks to Denis Muller for spotting it. Thanks to everyone for spotting birds--a good group effort this morning!
Tim Houghton
(Glen Arm)
 
Lincoln's Sparrow at feeder.  Photo by Wikipedia
 

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Friday, October 10, 2014

Patterson Park Friday Bird Walk

Wow - what a morning of migrant birds!  Even as we waited for everybody to gather, birds were zipping around and above us.  There seemed to be a high number of Eastern Phoebes, Northern Flickers, and Blue Jays.  Our first warbler was a male Redstart.  Other warblers seen include Common Yellowthroat, Palm, Ovenbird, Black and White, Black-throated Green, and Magnolia.

Also noted:
Green Heron
Canada Goose
Mallard
Ring-billed Gull
Coopers Hawk
Mourning Dove
Belted Kingfisher
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
White-breasted Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
House Wren
American Robin
Swainson's Thrush
Wood Thrush
Hermit Thrush
Gray Catbird
Both Ruby and Golden Crowned Kinglets
Brown Thrasher
Cedar Waxwing
Eastern Towhee
White-throated and Song Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird

Other birders were at Patterson Park as well - their bird lists and comments can be seen on
http://www.mdbirding.com/.

The next schedule bird walk at the park is Saturday, Oct. 25th at 8AM.

At the wetland garden

At times we didn't know which way to look - there were so many birds!



 

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Bird Walk at Irvine Nature Center

Blue-headed Vireo / photo by Kye Jenkins
Blue-eyed Darner / photo by Kye Jenkins

Complete ebird list: http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S20036577 .