Birding for Life

I cheated on the Yardbirds on the first day of the third stretch.  At least I felt a little unfaithful to my team when I went birding at a favorite hotspot.  It was only about a mile from my house, but not part of my patch for the Yard Squad Challenge.  I ran into a couple of friends and had a wonderful morning which I have to admit was very refreshing.  It was a nice break from beating the same bushes in my neighborhood looking for new birds.  Later in the afternoon, I sat on my deck staring at the trees.  And, surprise, surprise – two male Rose-breasted Grosbeaks were high in an oak.  They looked pretty content up there, but after a while they dropped down to the deck only a few feet away from where I sat.  Did I mention patience as one of the things that I’m learning?

Rose-breasted Grosbeak on my deck

The next day, it was back to work looking for birds in the ‘hood.  I had difficulty finding the warblers that I was hearing, but while I was searching the trees, a lovely male Scarlet Tanager landed in the oak where I’d seen the grosbeaks the previous day.  A new bird for the team!

Later, I shared recordings that I’d made that morning with a friend and with a Yardbirds teammate.  Both were able to pick out the song of a Cape May Warbler.  My strategy of making recordings when I couldn’t visually locate birds was paying off.  By the end of this stretch, three more birds from my patch would be identified by recorded songs.

New migrants passed through my area during this period, but I continued to have difficulty finding birds, especially warblers.  There is a reason that I’m usually traveling during the spring to places where the birds are easier to see.  However, I turned off my eBird county year needs alerts after my last post and that helped my sanity greatly.  As before, I tried my best to focus on what I did find.  And, nearly every time I went birding there was something interesting to observe.  Oh, Downy Woodpeckers have a nest in that tree.  Four Spotted Sandpipers all together in a corner of the lake; that might be a high count.  Fortunately, I’m easily amused and find all living creatures interesting.

A Yellow Warbler – one that I was able to hear, see, and photograph! It was also a new patch bird giving the Yardbirds a bonus point.

Perhaps the birds that I’ve enjoyed the most this stretch are the pair of Orchard Orioles that I’m sure are breeding near the neighborhood beach.  I have to work a little to see them, but I can usually find at least one because these birds sing a lot.  And, yes, I mean birds (plural) as I have heard both the male and female of this pair sing.  I first heard a female Orchard Oriole sing a few years ago and I was shocked.  I had searched for the source of the singing that I heard and saw the female open her beak in sync with the song.  I mentioned it to a friend who is a bird song expert and he assured me that I wasn’t hallucinating.  If you’re not familiar with female bird song, check out this short introduction form the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Many Female Birds Sing Beautiful Songs.

Male Orchard Oriole

I’ve also enjoyed the babies that appeared in the neighborhood during this stretch.  The resident birds got an early start and have already produced offspring while the migrants are still on their way north to their breeding grounds.  It seems like fledgling House Finches and Eastern Bluebirds are everywhere.  At least one Canada Goose family has fuzzy little goslings following them.  But, my favorite youngster may be this baby Carolina Wren begging to be fed.

Juvenile Carolina Wren

Our lakes are the heart of my neighborhood and I love living here.  I believe that the lakes attract a lot of birds in addition to the ever-present Canada Geese, a few wintering ducks, and breeding Green Herons.  Eastern Kingbirds are among the species attracted to the water and they nest in the trees on the edges of our lakes.

An Eastern Kingbird surveys his lake

Here is another view of my lake.  The obvious dock belongs to my next-door neighbors, but you can also just barely see my dock hidden under the trees.

Canvasback Lake, the largest of our three neighborhood lakes. I’ve seen quite a few species of ducks on our lakes, but never a Canvasback.

I ended this stretch of the Yard Squad Challenge on May 15 the same way that I started it; I cheated.  I suspect that like all types of cheating, it gets easier each time.  Early yesterday morning a birding friend texted me that he had an Alder Flycatcher at my favorite close-by hotspot.  That might not sound like an exciting bird to you, but it is a very rare bird for my county.  It would not just be a new county bird for me, it would become our first documented county record.  I was out the door in five minutes and joined a small group of birders a few minutes later.  We were six birders trying to stay six feet apart.  Luckily, we all heard the distinctive song, more important for identification of a flycatcher than seeing the bird, although one person did catch a quick glimpse.

Yesterday afternoon, I birded my neighborhood again and didn’t find anything new, but I got responses from a couple of friends who had listened to another of my recordings.  After being nudged in the right direction, I, too, could pick out the Acadian Flycatcher and Eastern Wood-Pewee songs.

During this two-week stretch of the challenge, I’ve found seven new birds with five of them adding to the Yardbirds team count.  My total for the challenge is now at 80 species.  Can I find more birds in the final stretch?