fall birding action
Dori had tipped me off about a lot of bird activity in the alders behind her house, but I hadn’t had time to go look until this morning when I took a half-hour break to scan the edges of some yards and down by the river.
It was incredible. The trees and bushes were practically dripping with birds.
There were a lot of different kinds of fall warblers that I just couldn’t identify — I’m way out of practice, and they’re hard to get anyway. I do know there were many yellow-rumped warblers, at least a couple northern parulas, common yellowthroat, and palm warblers. There were big numbers of adolescent and adult cedar waxwings, and a bunch of gangly young robins (and adults). I briefly saw a grosbeak (the big beak unmistakable) and eventually figured out it was a first-year or female red-breasted grosbeak.
Also caught brief views of a yellow-bellied sapsucker, a bird I’ve seen only rarely anywhere and never before here at Nubi. And just after returning indoors, I looked out the window and saw an osprey soaring, then tucking its wings and heading southward. The sapsucker and osprey bring my Nubi list up to 85 species so far.
If only I could get some expert help identifying all those fall warblers (and sparrows), I’m sure the list would surpass 100 pretty quickly.