Local action

14-15-May 2007

The migrant tide is in full flow and our local area has started to produce. Rain overnight on May 14th produced a garden tree full of warblers in the morning. Work briefly intervened before an evening walk allowed further list additions. In between there were trips out and about but I’ll deal with them in other posts. For the record, my 15th May sightings all within 400m of my home were:
Black-throated Blue Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Blackburnian Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Northern Parula
Bay-breasted Warbler
Black & White Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Pine Warbler
American Redstart (stupid name by the way!)
Swainson’s Thrush
Veery
Ovenbird
Plus kinglets, sparrows and flycatchers.

A few days prior to that a Northern Waterthrush whacked out its song from the undergrowth (bad picture below) but didn’t quite venture over the road into the garden proper. By the end of May 15th the year list had risen to 204 with Blackburnian Warbler being the 200th species. I wonder whether there will be a 300th.

Stop press, Sandhill Crane added on 16th May, a very wet day.

Below a few shots for your amusement.



















Not the easiest thing to snap in the dense cover of our local swamp, a Northern Waterthrush.

















The Garden now has five White-crowned Sparrows in it.








































Ovenbirds make a lot of noise for a little bird but when they are singing it is possible to creep up on them as making all of that noise requires their concentration.







































Least Flycatcher, named by the school of zero imagination. I wonder why it was never called Tchebec, after all we have Peewee and Phoebe as phonetic names for that pair.