Greetings,

With the day off today from work I decided to head over to Greene County for another shot at a few good targets that I’m hoping to get early in the year for my ‘08 year list. These were mostly gulls including Iceland, Glaucous, and Lesser Black-backed. I was also hoping to take my camera with me to get a few good shots of various species along the way. One of the species I was hoping to get a better look at today was Northern Shrike. (more…)

I wasn’t sure it would ever happen, but spring has come to northern Vermont.  Early April looked promising, but then two straight weeks of miserable cold rain and snow including a nasty nor’easter reversed and negated any sign of spring.  That period of snow provided incredible action on the bird feeders.  Junco’s and goldfinches were very thick with plenty of cardinals, blue jays, and evening grosbeaks.  I was feeling left out that I had not heard or seen any woodcocks yet and then while barbecuing on the porch friday night, one was calling and displaying not 50ft from the porch in our tiny wet meadow; very nice.  Wish me luck in finding the local migrant traps!

Ryan

Greetings,

Feeling I should break away from work on the computer,
I decided to head outside to listen for any nocturnal
migrants which might be heading over. Walking out the
door at 11:30pm to a semi-quiet neighborhood (nearby
highway hum), I was immediately greeted by some
feathered friends winging their way south. In the
course of about 15 minutes (I kept it short), I had a
fairly decent flight in which I detected the
following: (more…)

When the opportunity to bird New York City’s central park with friend and co-worker Missy came about this past holiday weekend, I could hardly pass up the opportunity. Making the ~2hr trip to the city via car and metro train, I arrived in the city Sunday night to spend the night with Missy and her sister (Lori) who she was visiting. Fortunately Missy’s sister lived fairly close to Central Park, so an early morning arrival to the famed park was rather easy come Monday morning. (more…)

Looking through some old notes I came across just the other day, one of the papers held my total sightings for my summer of work on the Hardy Boat in Maine. Here they are: (more…)

As expected, I made the trip to Monterey on June 25 for what is looking to be my last trip out of Monterey Bay this year (a sad event for sure). Fortunately, the trip turned out very memorable with great friends on board (Anne Pellegrini, John Musina, and Mark Dettling), and great sights on the seas. Overall bird diversity was low on this trip (as expected), but the spectacles of what we saw were well worth the effort of getting down there. To Roger Wolfe and the Monterey Seabirds Co. I am extremely grateful for the amazing hospitality on board the boats, and the opportunity for me to get on as a chummer for my last 3 trips. (more…)

Well I’ve been able to get out birding a good amount this past week (8 hours or so) so I’ll fill you in on some Limehollow bird stuff.

Like a scene out of Attenborough’s  Life of Birds, I experienced some interesting Black-throated Green warbler behaviour.  I stepped away from the computer for a quick break and right next to my head, two BTGreen warblers copulated.  It was quick but enough to guess what was going on.  When parting ways, they nearly hit me in the head and then the female landed on a branch, an arms length away.  I watched as she flexed her cloaca and dispensed her recent acquistion (sperm) like a bad habit. pretty cool behavior and good news for all you females out there… chicks are litterally ‘in charge.’  Think about it… a male Indigo Bunting would not be wearing a bright blue jump-suit if his woman did not dig it.

anyways… I’ve been seeing alot of fledglings lately, tree swallows, wood thrush, chickadee, purple finch, junco, eastern pheobe, blue-headed vireo.  It is neat to see one or two downy feathers sticking out from under their new ‘real’ feathers.  Many birds are well on their way to a second brood; American Robin, Tree Swallow, Eastern Bluebird.

I’ve reliably had both Cuckoo’s lately and most noteably, had a Black-billed Cuckoo feeding young last Tuesday!

With all this bird activity, the woods are very active so keep your eyes open at all times of day, you may be the first person to ever see a new bird!