We’ve had a lot of wonderful avian visitors to our yard this spring. Dave set up a new feeding station since we suspect that our old one was knocked down by a bear and it’s been quite a hit. There are also now two bluebird boxes in the field so this year we have an Eastern Bluebird pair! Many of our yearly visitors have returned, including the Chipping Sparrows, Gray Catbird pair, American Robin pair, Rose-breasted Grosbeak pair, a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, a Broad-winged Hawk, and the Red-eyed Vireo. Our Northern Cardinal and Pileated Woodpecker pairs have also been making frequent appearances.
Gray Catbird (Image by Michelle Horowitz)Gray Catbird (Image by Michelle Horowitz)Pileated Woodpecker male (Image by David Horowitz)Pileated Woodpecker male (Image by David Horowitz)Yellow-bellied Sapsucker breeding male (Image by David Horowitz)Chipping Sparrow (Image by Michelle Horowitz)
What kind of birds have been visiting your yard/area this spring? Let me know in the comments!
This year, Mother’s Day and Global Big Day ended up being the same weekend. If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile you know that all I really want for Mother’s Day (actually most days haha) is to go birding. So yesterday we went to Pickering Ponds to look for new migrants. It was a lovely morning and we were able to observe 39 species.
Pickering Ponds Highlights
Rose-breasted Grosbeaks: We saw 5 Rose-breasted Grosbeak males singing. Males arrive at their breeding grounds before the females to establish their territories. I’ve only ever seen a single pair at a time, so it was fun to see so many males singing in one spot. Rose-breasted Grosbeaks are considered socially monogamous and will stay together for the breeding season. Males will approach females while singing and may throw back their heads and spread their wings/tail. However, once a female decides on a mate the male usually rejects her for a day or two before accepting.
Rose-breasted Grosbeak male (Image by David Horowitz)
Broad-winged Hawk being mobbed by Red-winged Blackbirds
Lots of mating pairs:Baltimore Orioles, Fish Crows on a nest, Eastern Kingbirds, Eastern Bluebirds , Mourning Doves
A female Bufflehead: There weren’t many birds out on the ponds themselves, but a lone female Bufflehead was found swimming among some female Common Mergansers. It’s late in the season for Bufflehead to still be around, so she has been listed on the NH Rare Bird list.
Neotropical Migrants: Killdeer, Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, Turkey Vulture, Osprey, Eastern Phoebe, Warbling Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Tree Swallow, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, House Wren, Gray Catbird, American Robin, American Goldfinch
Other species: Hairy Woodpecker, Blue Jay, American Crow, Black-capped Chickadee, European Starling, White-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Brown-headed Cowbird, Common Grackle, Northern Cardinal
Eastern Kingbird (Image by David Horowitz)
Did you get to go birding on May Global Big Day? What bird species did you see? Tell me about it in the comments!
Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful 2022.
Today Dave, Baby Birder, and I started 2023 with our first birding trip of the year and it’s sure going to be hard to beat in the future! The NH Rare Bird List has been pretty active over the last week and I’ve been keeping my eye on two species in particular. I decided that today would be the day to pursue them since they have been observed reliably in the same locations for over a week.
So we made our way out to the Seacoast this morning with high hopes to spot two western species: the Western Tanager and Mountain Bluebird.
Western Tanager (Photo by David Horowitz)Western Tanager (Photo by David Horowitz)
Our first rarity of the day was a female Western Tanager. She was busy feeding along the apple trees on the side of the road. As their name suggests, Western Tanagers breed in the western United States and Canada and winter in Central America. Females are yellow with black backs/wings, have two wing bars, and a heavy orange bill. Males are a brighter yellow and have flaming bright orange-red heads during breeding season. Fun fact: tanagers are actually part of the cardinal family. Our beautiful little friend was quite a delight!
Our second rarity was a Mountain Bluebird who has been hanging out with the Eastern Bluebirds at a park not far from the tanager’s location. This gorgeous male was light blue with a pale gray belly and vibrant blue tail feathers. Another western species, Mountain Bluebirds breed in western Canada and northwest United States and winter in the southwest, Mexico, and California coast. Some populations are year-round residents in the interior west. One of the fun things about this find was that I ran into one of my friends there, so we got to find the bluebird together!
Mountain Bluebird (Photo by Michelle Horowitz)Mountain Bluebird (Photo by Michelle Horowitz)
What an amazing start to 2023! I think this is the first time we observed two rare birds in one day. I can’t wait to see what other birding adventures 2023 brings!
My first bird of 2023 was an American Crow. What was your first bird of the year? Tell me about it in the comments. Also, since it’s winter, be on the lookout for a new Waterfowl Wednesday coming soon! Happy birding!
I hope everyone had a great first day of the 2022 Great Backyard Bird Count!
We are off to a good start this weekend with our trip to Rye. The original plan was to just go to Odiorne Point State Park, but we actually went to 4 different locations. The main reason for the change in plans was the wind. It was relatively warm today (about 45 degrees…that’s pretty warm for us right now haha!) but the winds were at least 25+ miles per hour. 2022 is our son’s (“Baby Birder”) first GBBC, but we didn’t want him out in the wind too long, so we did multiple locations with shorter watching times. Besides it being his first count, we had another interesting first, plus it was a 3 merganser day.
Odiorne Point State Park
Of course gulls and sea ducks don’t care about the wind, so we spotted a few species. Surprisingly, we didn’t see any Common Eiders today. Since moving to New England we constantly see them, so it was kind of refreshing to see other ducks instead (nothing again CEs, but they were more of a novelty in NJ…).
10 Canada Geese
2 Common Goldeneye
8 Red-breasted Merganser
4 Ring-billed Gull
1 Common Loon
1 Blue Jay
2 Black-capped Chickadees
1 Northern Mockingbird
3 Eastern Bluebirds
Site Total: 9 species, 32 individuals
Northern Mockingbird trying to avoid the wind (Photo by BirdNation)
We had an interesting GBBC “first” today…a dead bird on the beach. It looks like an alcid. Our guess is that it’s a nonbreeding Common Murre, but it’s a little difficult to tell. Anyone have any guesses? (Let me know what you think in the comments). It obviously doesn’t count on our life list since it’s dead, but if it is a Murre at least we got a good look at it for when we see a live one. RIP little guy.
Mystery Alcid? (Photos by David Horowitz)
Coves south of Odiorne and Parsons Creek Saltmarsh
Since the winds were harsh and unforgiving it made sense that many birds were further inland. We spotted some birds in the coves south of Odiorne Point SP and at Parsons Creek Saltmarsh across from Wallis Sands Beach.
35 Canada Geese
36 Mallards
4 Hooded Mergansers
6 Ring-billed Gulls
1 American Crow
5 American Black Ducks
Site Total: 6 species, 87 individuals
Rye Harbor State Park
25 Surf Scoters
1 Long-tailed Duck
6 Ring-billed Gulls
10 Herring Gulls
Site Total: 4 species, 48 Individuals
Other Highlights
On our way to and from Rye we observed a few incidental species. We saw multiple Red-tailed Hawks, many groups of Rock Pigeons, and Common Mergansers. Therefore we saw all 3 North American merganser species today (Common, Red-breasted, and Hooded). This count was also special for me because like I mentioned earlier, it’s Baby Birder’s first bird count. He doesn’t notice most of the bird yet since he’s so little but I’m glad that he can join us. He loves going on adventures and especially loves sitting in his backpack carrier. It was windy, but he still had a smile on his face :-).
So between our incidental sightings and the 4 Rye locations, we saw a total of 18species. I’m looking forward to the next few days of the count.
Did you go birding on day 1 of the Great Backyard Bird Count? Tell me what yousaw in the comments!
Hello friends! I’m here writing you at 8:50 pm on 12/31/19, the end of the year and the decade. I can’t believe 2020 is already upon us. 2019 was a very exciting birding year for us and 2020 is going to be just as, if not more, amazing! My New Year’s Resolution is to get back to blogging frequently again because to be honest, 2019 was a little rough to stay on task. At the end of June Dave and I moved from New Jersey to New Hampshire and its been quite an adventure. Here are BirdNation’s 2019 highlights.
Life List Birds (19 for me, 17 for Dave)
Razorbill: 1/6 at Sandy Hook Beach, NJ (on our 1st wedding anniversary)
Scarlet Tanager: 5/8 at Maria B. Greenwald Park, Cherry Hill, NJ
Eastern Meadowlark: 6/19 at Chincoteague NWR, VA
Eastern Meadowlark (Image by David Horowitz)
Bobolink: 7/28 at Parker River NWR, Newbury, MA
Common Nighthawk: 8/30 at Moores Crossing Railroad Bridge, Manchester, NH
Nashville Warbler: 9/1 at Miller SP-Pack Monadnock, Peterborough, NH
Black Guillemot: 11/10 at Odiorne SP, Rye, NH
American Tree Sparrow: 12/15 at Concord, NH (Dave wasn’t there for this one either, I saw this in the Concord Christmas Bird Count)
Virginia Rail: 12/26 at Edwin B. Forsythe NWR
My current life list total is 227.
Year List 2019
This is the 2nd year I kept a Year List. 2019’s total was 189, 14 more birds than 2018 (175). The Year List will continue into 2020.
Bird Counts
We participated in many bird counts this year:
Great Backyard Bird Count: We counted at Amico Island , Haddon Lake Park, Palmyra Cove, Barnegat Lighthouse SP, Cloverdale Farm, and then Haddon Lake again (lol) to find 52 different species and over 1,500 individual birds
Global Big Day (May 4): 55 species (11 of them warblers) between Rancocas Nature Center and Palmyra Cove
2019 Great American Arctic Birding Challenge (March 15-June 1): It was Team BirdNation’s 2nd year participating and we saw 56 species
October Big Day (October 19): 20 species in Cape Cod, MA
Concord Christmas Bird Count (December 15): I participated in the Concord CBC. Last year I did the Moorestown, NJ count with my friends from Rancocas, but I wanted to start getting involved in the New Hampshire birding community. I had a blast being on the team and we totaled 51 species at the time (not including a count we were waiting on from 1 person and count week birds).
Birding States
We went birding in 2 new states in 2019: New Hampshire (where we moved to) and Maine, bringing our total to 11 birding states. Other states we visited this year were Massachusetts, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
Onward to 2020…
I’m so excited to start our birding adventures in 2020! There are some pretty cool opportunities coming up, so I will keep you posted on all our new expeditions (and I will catch you up on some of the events of the past few months.) Happy New Year! See you in 2020!
BirdNation 