I guess it’s time I outed myself. Some of you may have probably figured out, based on my previous posts about robins and rock doves, that I’m a closet birdwatcher. No doubt a few decades from now I’ll be a familiar site around town, a crazy old broad in a funny hat shlepping around the Arb and local stormwater ponds with binoculars around my neck.
I’m still smarting from Griff’s followup post in which he implied that my posts on bird sightings are “fluff”. I suspect that there are more than a few of us around town – maybe even an organized group or two. (In fact, today is the day of the annual bird count in the Arb. Anyone…?)
Here’s my most recent sighting of the unusual, which made me happy for a whole day. Last Thursday evening about 7:30 I saw a Cape May warbler in one of our blossoming plum trees. I assume it’s passing through on the way to its summer range, and it’s a beautiful little bird.
I’d love to hear about birds observed in the Northfield area, especially now when we have some interesting species passing through. If you can find a photo of the bird on the internet, you can embed the picture in your comment by including the following HTML “image source” commands in your comment:
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Today I saw an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in the Arb!
After endless cold and damp weather this spring, and bad birding last spring, 2011 seems to be a good year in these parts.
Looking for a good time? Check out the warblers and their friends at the Cannon Valley Wilderness Park, east of Hwy 3 a few miles south of town. Notably in evidence last Sunday, for instance, were yellowthroats, redstarts, scarlet tanagers, indigo buntings, and all sorts of warblers: yellow, black and white, yellow-rumped, Blackburnian, chestnut-sided, blackpoll, Cape May, Northern parula, and others less readily identified.
I know that some birding friends from Rochester came to the Northfield area to see the snowy owl that was reported just east of town. I think I nearly ran it down when it was chased across the road at dusk last winter (my bird identification skills are not at the levels of you real experts). And it is really nice to see the turkey and eagle populations bouncing back from the low levels we used to have, but even those simple little black-capped chickadees make the mornings brighter.