birding morning
I haven’t given any Nubi birding updates in quite a while, and as it’s now high season for migrants and new arrivals setting up spring territory — prime-time for birding — here are some notes on my early-hours walk this morning. Highlights included:
– At the top of the horse pasture, a male scarlet tanager, brilliant in the early sun, was singing away.
– Near the beginning of Nubi’s white dot trail, I flushed two wood ducks (male & female) who flew up and perched in a tree!
– At the far side of the hayfield, I saw my first baltimore oriole of the season, singing away.
– Also near the top of the horse pasture, I heard multiple hermit thrushes and wood thrushes (first I’ve heard this year), and saw one hermit thrush as it foraged in underbrush nearby.
– A yellow-bellied sapsucker flew over me to a power-line pole, hopped onto a metal part covering one of the wires, and started drumming away, seeming to be experimenting with different tones, all very loud.
– Later in the day I caught brief views of a wilson’s warbler low in bushes near the river, first time I’ve seen this species at Nubi.
Although today was quite bird-filled, I had the impression of fewer warblers than yesterday morning, when I also went on an early walk. Yesterday there seemed to be waves of warblers coming through. This morning I saw/heard a lot of warblers up in the scrubby area above the horse pasture, but they were more settled in, singing for territory, rather than passing through in waves.
Full list of what I could identify over these two days (there were several more kinds of warblers, especially yesterday, that my novice skills could NOT identify):
Canada Goose
Wood Duck
Mourning Dove
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Blue-headed Vireo
Blue Jay
American Crow
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Hermit Thrush
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Gray Catbird
European Starling
Black-and-white Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Northern Parula
Blackburnian Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Wilson’s Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Palm Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Scarlet Tanager
Northern Cardinal
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Common Grackle
Baltimore Oriole
American Goldfinch













