Winter Storm? No More

A quick update on the birding of the day.  I spent most of the day outside birding various sites and different environments and got a good variety of birds.

Site #1 - A Beach/Marsh - Here I saw my first Green-Winged Teal of the Year and heard many Grackles and RW Blackbirds too.  Marshes are pretty good environments for birds as they supply a lot of hiding space and food.  This marsh was behind a couple of warehouses and has seen some migrants and local rarities.  While we are always hoping to find something new.

Site #2 - A freshwater pond - This pond has been the site of various waterfowl lately and I was hoping to see some before all attention passes to the Warbler Migration.  The benefit of this pond was that it also had a 2nd growth forest meaning that lots of cardinals and chickadees were at play!

Site #3 - Another Beach/Saltmarsh/Sandspits - This site is home to a variety of species and is one of the places where I fell in love with birding.  Here I saw more GW Teals, American Wigeons, crows and one of my all-time favorite birds, A Carolina Wren.

As Spring approaches, I am getting more and more ready for migration season.  Studying, reading, training will help make it as productive as possible.  Of course, I would like to spend sometime with friends and family... but maybe they just need their own migration season.

 Red-Tailed Hawk (c) soaring a few feet above me

Carolina Wren (c) singing its heart out!

2013 Year List: 88
Notable Additions
Carolina Wren
American Coot

A Day at the Beach

So full disclosure, today's post has no new birds to talk about.  But I just wanted to post and talk about how ready I am for migration season to begin.  My last visit to the Point let me see a lot of old early migrants.  Teals, Gadwalls, Wigeons and Brants were all around.  A few RB Mergs were also around.  I did see a Northern Harrier fight some serious winds along side some Ring-Billed Gulls.  While I did not get any new birds, I did enjoy being outside and seeing some serious birds in their environments.  An Osprey was nest building, or trying to anyway, since there were a few people around trying to fix an Osprey Cam.  When the link is up and running I will attach!  One thing I did enjoy was seeing how birds organize themselves.  As I posted before, Alvaro Jaramillo had posted that bids often organize themselves by size, a real pecking order!  I saw this for myself as I scanned and examined a sandbar.  At one end, Great Blacked Gulls dominated the bar, then Ring-Billed mixed with Brants and then at the end, tiny little Dunlins were fighting for space at the end of the bar.  Beyond listing and building one's list, it is important to start seeing what the birds are doing around you.  I will definitely be looking out for the birds and their habits.  And I've attached some fun Observations below.  If you have something interesting, please comment below:

WB Nuthatch going up a tree like a Brown Creeper
BH Nuthatch going at a tree like a Woodpecker
RB Gull chasing some tree swallows with a similar flight pattern
RT Hawk buzzing a flock of Mallards for fun
RS Hawk chasing a murder of crows instead of the other way around
Greater Yellowlegs running around a mudflat in circles


Any good ones?

A Weekend of Outings...

So it was been a busy weekend. Trying to keep ahead of the Spring Migration kept me bust and vigilant. Every time I went out this weekend, I kept an eye open for wayward species and new migrants. I did manage to get a lot of birds here that I had gotten down south before. Northern Shovelers, Northern Flickers, Eastern Phoebes, and Killdeer. Great Outings even if I missed the Blue-Winged Teals, Egrets and Ibises that had returned! Nonetheless it was a great time to be about out and about. Missing those birds was a disappointment for my 2012 list and even my life list in a few cases, but I did enjoy seeing, hearing and being outside. The Flicker was hanging out with some RW Blackbirds. A great weekend of birding! The real gem of the weekend was seeing the Piping Plovers. They were displaying and even mounting and mating! Looking forward to a great and active Migration season!

Outing #22
American Oystercatcher
Black-Bellied Plover
Cedar Waxwing
Piping Plover

2012 Total: 100 (half way to goal for the year!)