Back to Birds

After months of planning, the 27th annual meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections finally took place at the Omni Hotel in New Haven, CT.  The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History was the host this year and much of our collections staff was involved in the planning and hosting of this amazing event.  It went off great!  Now that it's over.... we can finally get back to the birds.

Sue and I have had almost no time for lunch time walks or keeping our bird board up to date.  The first thing we did on Tuesday morning (after the meeting), was wipe down the birds to start over fresh.  The weather's been jumping around with a heat wave of 3 consecutive days over 90 degrees (that's what a heat wave technically is) to overnight lows last night of somewhere near 60.  Everyone on campus at this time of year are likely breeders.  Of course some are just passing over.

Great Egret
Red-tailed Hawk
Turkey Vulture
Killdeer
Herring Gull
Common Flicker
Mourning Dove
Blue Jay
Barn Swallow
House Wren
Northern Mockingbird
Gray Catbird
American Robin
Yellow Warbler
Cedar Waxwing
Tufted Titmouse
European Starling
Song Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
American Goldfinch
House Finch
House Sparrow
Common Grackle


Baby Robin- photo by Lynn Jones



24 species total for one week.  Gray Catbirds have been seen flying into the Pussy Willow bushes to pluck off some berries and then fly back to their hidden nests and young.  Baby American Robins have been spotted all around campus waiting for their parents to bring them snacks.