Well, it’s April and that means we are awaiting the arrival of warblers. It also means taking lots of photos of eastern towhees while we wait. Here are a few of this year’s shots. Their large size and awesome coloration belie the fact that towhees are members of the sparrow family.
Just a few random shots of birds I saw last month. Spring migration is upon us and gaining speed every day. Be sure to be out there to enjoy the show.
It may not be the most technically sound bird photo (none of mine are really), but I kind of like the composition. Song sparrow.
What started out as a bird walk eventually morphed into a different type of nature walk.
I figured I would head to the nearby park a week before the official start of spring to see if any early spring birds had arrived. My main target, as always in mid-March, was American woodcock. As always, I came up empty in that department.
Other birds were scarce as well. The winter ducks had presumably left the ponds for points north. No other spring birds had arrived yet, at least not that I saw that day. I know that eastern phoebes are around right now, and the other day through my window at work I saw a yellow-rumped warbler. But there was no such luck on this walk.
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Here are a few more shots of the white-throated sparrow eating crabapples from last month. Here is the original column with the full story.
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Perhaps against my better judgment, I am going to move forward with an early signs of spring column.
Even as nearly a foot of snow fell in my area a few short days ago, signs of spring are out there. They may not abound yet, but they are out there.
It started a little over a week ago with one of the typical first signs of spring: snowdrops poking out of the ground and flashing their little white flowers. A day or two later, a flock of turkeys walked past my window at work. It was a good-sized flock of about 15 to 20 birds, and, of course, I had to leave my work area temporarily to check out the action.
As I stepped out of a door a fair distance away from the turkeys so as to not disturb their day, I noticed that several of the males were displaying. No matter how many times you’ve seen it before, it is always an impressive sight to see turkeys displaying. They are large birds to begin with, so when their feathers are displayed to intimidate or impress, the birds appear to be that much larger.
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This post doesn’t have anything to do with birds, but I figured I’d share the dusk sky from the other night. It’s amazing how quickly the scene changes at dusk. A matter of minutes is all it takes to miss shots like this.
Note to the neighborhood birds: Due to weather conditions, this feeder is temporarily closed. Please visit the adjacent feeder with a cover over it. Thank you for your understanding.
Here are a few more shots of the yellow-bellied sapsucker I saw the other day tapping on a tree. Note the aligned holes in the tree shown in some of the photos. Here is the post with the full column.
The woods seem to be full of surprises this winter.
Last week I wrote about the gray catbird I have been seeing on my walks this winter. On a walk last week, which was done when it was about 15 degrees outside, I had four species that were marked as “unusual” by eBird, a maassive database of bird sightings. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the birds are rare, but rather they are not commonly seen in New England during the winter. The species were: catbird, hermit thrush, purple finch and yellow-bellied sapsucker.
The catbird, thrush and finch were all species I had seen on previous walks this winter. In fact, it seems as though I typically find a hermit thrush or two each winter in New England. Like the catbird, hermit thrushes typically migrate south of New England before winter, but some remain in our region, opting to tolerate the cold weather rather than take on the risks of migration.
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Birds of New England.com 