127
Time: 1 p.m.
Conditions: Mostly cloudy and 62 degrees
Observed From: The backyard
Notes: I LOVE this time of year. The neighborhood is starting to fill up with migrant birds. I want to run around and tell all the neighbors to look up in the trees. Some of the birds are very small, quiet and fast, and if you’re not looking for them, you’ll never know they are there.
Today I’m just going to list the species instead of tallying them because there are too many birds to count.
The usual suspects:
- Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers
- Cardinals
- Red-bellied Woodpeckers
- Chipping Sparrows
- Crows
- Goldfinches
- Chickadees
- White-breasted Nuthatches
- Juncos
- Gray Squireels
- 1 Cabbage Butterfly (the first official butterfly of the season)
- Two very curious neighbor kids that wondered what I was doing with my binoculars and camera
Today’s migrants:
- Ruby-crowned Kinglets (These tiny little birds are everywhere today. They are very hard to photograph because they do not sit still for a moment, but I got lucky when one landed in the shrub right in front of me and kindly flashed his red crown which often remains hidden):
- Brown Creeper (This bird is easy to identify because it always flies to the bottom of a tree and then creeps up the trunk in a spiral):
- Last but not least the Yellow-Rumped Warbler, one of my favorite warblers and usually the first to arrive:
