How many times...

and how many ways can I say how much I've enjoyed this migration season.

It was quite a week.  Started out with a bang - see my earlier post - then just kept up a steady trickle of migrating birds.

I encountered the three tom turkeys every time I went out, so they start the list.  A few weeks back a report came in from the grounds crew that a turkey had met its demise against the four-story glass bridge at the other end of campus.  The current group of three was four all summer long - and sadly, they have lost a cohort.

Wild Turkey
Canada Goose
Turkey Vulture
Red-tailed Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
American Kestrel

American Kestrel, Falco sparverius, photo from: http://www.billhubick.com/index.php

I've listed four species of raptor, but there were maybe eight individuals total - nothing like last week, with the kettles of soaring hawks.  Audubon Greenwich has officially ended their Quaker Ridge fall hawk watch, but New Haven's big migration festival is Sunday Sept 26th.  Also this weekend, is the Great Stratford Bird Festival, at Stratford Point.

Herring Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Killdeer
Mourning Dove
Rock Pigeon
Monk Parakeet - a large squawking flock flew overhead,
(witnessed by Nate, Jess and Jess)
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Ruby-throated Hummingbird

The flickers are around in LARGE numbers in the open woods and grassy edges at the south end of campus.  And I made good on my promise to set up the nectar feeder, because the migrating hummers are still around.

Eastern Phoebe, Sayornis phoebe, same photo I used in last year's post

Eastern Phoebe - yup they're baaaack
American Crow
Blue Jay
Red-eyed Vireo
Cedar Waxwing
European Starling
Gray Catbird
Northern Mockingbird
American Robin

Flocks of robins, starlings and flickers were feeding together, foraging in the grass for insects.

Black-capped Chickadee
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Carolina Wren
House Wren
Red-breasted Nuthatch, Sitta canadensis

See Wednesday's post to read about the nuthatch!

Northern Cardinal
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco

Lincoln's Sparrow, Melospiza lincolnii, (also a photo from last years post)

The last three all showed up with the high pressure system Tuesday morning, but only the White-throat was a repeat find later in the week.  Happily, I had two viewings of the Lincoln's Sparrow - one at noon in the junipers near A-21 and the second at the end of the day, away down south along a grassy edge near one of the numerous parking lots.

Common Yellowthroat - still quite common
Magnolia Warbler
American Redstart
Yellow-rumped Warbler - a late-season migrant - three found today

Good to see the warblers are still around - I'm hoping for a few new species - like the Pine Warbler, another late migrant, which may yet pass through our green hilltop.

Common Grackle
American Goldfinch

I think the nest may have been abandoned, as I saw no activity nearby.  When Lynn returns from vacation, we'll carry the stepladder out and check inside.
So, forty species for the week - another excellent week of birding West Campus!

Too exciting to wait!

Monday night a fairly strong northerly front moved through, making for some pretty fun birding on Tuesday!

At lunchtime I had a plan to walk straight to the nature preserve on campus, to see what I could see, but barely got beyond the back door.  A chunky sparrow flushed from the juniper -- the first White-throated Sparrow of the year.  A little sparrow lurked deep within the juniper, curious, but very quiet -- a beautiful Lincoln's Sparrow.

A flitting of dark and light I almost dismissed as another chickadee became something very exciting -- a Red-breasted Nuthatch.  And feeding with the nuthatch in the same group of pines were several returning Golden-crowned Kinglets.

Red-breasted Nuthatch, Sitta canadensis, photo Jorge de Leon

Red-breasted Nuthatch, Sitta canadensis, photo J. de Leon

There went my lunch hour, just a few steps from the building!
Returning through the courtyard, an unfamiliar high call came from somewhere - and a Dark-eyed Junco flew off.  I'll keep my eyes open in the coming days for more sparrows!

Hooray for migration - but with the thrill of September birding comes the certainty of what's next...
ciao,
Sue

Week's Wrap-up

This week was both eventful and uneventful.

The un-event is a real reason for celebration.  During a week of peak migration we had ZERO casualties on our deadly glass corridor in the A-21 courtyard (the one I papered last Friday!).  Now having written this, I have to qualify it by saying we did have a strike against a more obscure window.

Wednesday morning we picked up remnants of a Common Nighthawk, which we must have overlooked some days before.  All that remained was the wings and a few body feathers - a mammal had likely consumed the rest, since the bones and all soft tissue were gone.  This is a species we have not yet recorded in life on campus.  Nighthawks usually fly and feed during the last light of the evening - a time when we aren't around to observe them.  I saw two at home yesterday just at dusk.

Sue prepping wing, photo by Lynn.

The best I could do for the dead nighthawk was prepare a spread wing for the collection.  I'll attach a specimen tag with relevant information, such as date, place and manner of death.

In other events, Mama Goldfinch is still incubating.

Several Ruby-throated Hummingbirds moved through on Tuesday - we counted five in the short time we were able to be outside observing.  Observations of this species during migration find the birds most numerous during strong northwest winds (yes, we had that on Tues and Weds!), and that most of these birds are seen during midday, which may indicate they refuel earlier in the day.   The Ruby-throated Hummingbird overwinters in Central America and along the US Gulf Coast.

We had a lot of fun watching for raptors all week - see Wednesday's post to read more about hawk-watching.

Now for the list!

Raptors:

Bald Eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus - NEW!!!

Turkey Vulture
Black Vulture (2nd sighting for 2010)
Osprey
Northern Harrier - in a big mixed-species kettle up high
Red-tailed Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk, Buteo platypterus - NEW!! - in a big mixed-species kettle up high*
Cooper's Hawk
Sharp-shinned Hawk (thanks Tom!)
Merlin
Kestrel (2nd sighting for 2010)

Other non-passerines:
Wild Turkey
Canada Goose
Herring Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Killdeer
Mourning Dove
Rock Pigeon
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Chimney Swift
Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Resident passerine species:
Blue Jay
Common Crow
Fish Crow
Cedar Waxwing
European Starling
American Robin
Northern Mockingbird
Gray Catbird
Black-capped Chickadee
Northern Cardinal
Song Sparrow
American Goldfinch
House Finch
Brown-headed Cowbird
Common Grackle
Red-winged Blackbird

Migrating passerine species:
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Polioptila caerulea - NEW!!
Common Yellowthroat (but it nested here too)
Palm Warbler

Wow - that's 41 species for the week.  This news just in - in an email from the far southeastern end of West Campus, Tom Parlapiano mentioned he saw the first Dark-eyed Junco of the year, outside the Education Center.   Make that forty two species for the week!

* Here's an excerpt from Cornell's All About Birds site, concerning the migration of Broad-winged Hawks:

•  The Broad-winged Hawk completely leaves its breeding grounds in the fall and winter. Huge numbers of migrating broad-wings can be seen at hawk watches across the East. It usually migrates in large flocks or "kettles" that can range from a couple of individuals to thousands.
• A recent study attached satellite transmitters to the backs of four Broad-winged Hawks and followed them as they migrated south in the fall. The hawks migrated an average of 7,000 km (4,350 mi) to northern South America, and traveled an average of 111 km (69 mi) each day. Once at the wintering grounds, the hawks did not move around much, staying on average within 2.6 square km (1 square mi).

First Annual September 15th Lynn's Birthday Hawk Watch at West Campus

Sue and Lynn hawk-watching at West Campus

What a fantastic day we had - for what we dubbed our First Annual Lynn's Birthday Hawk Watch.
So, Happy Birthday Lynn from all of the raptors that flew overhead today!
Which were...

Bald Eagle, Haliaeetus leucocephalus
Turkey Vulture
Black Vulture
Osprey
Red-tailed Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Merlin
American Kestrel

and four or five Buteo sp. - which probably were our still uncertain Broad-winged Hawk
and a few Accipiter sp. - which means probably a Sharp-shinned Hawk

Mid-September is the peak of hawk migration, and hawk watches spring up at strategic locations all along the favored flyways.
Lighthouse Point Hawk Watch (New Haven Bird Club) and Migration Festival (City of New Haven Parks Dept. - Sunday September 26th)
Quaker Ridge Hawk Watch (at Audubon Greenwich)

So, get out with your binoculars under a big patch of sky and watch for tiny black dots against the blue and white of a September afternoon.  Tiny black dots - that's why we list Buteo sp and not the actual species - cause we can't tell what it is!

How do you recycle your YDN?

Sooo... how DO you recycle your Yale Daily News?

I plastered the windows of our worst window-strike hallway.

We've had a number of migrating birds die of windowstrikes against this very hallway.  In the last few weeks we found one Ovenbird, one Mourning Dove, one Catbird, one Robin and sadly, three Northern Waterthrushes.  Since the hallway is in an unoccupied section of our building I took action that would normally not fly in your average workplace.

 Northern Waterthrush, Seiurus noveboracensis, windowkill from A-21 courtyard, photo L. Jones

detail, Northern Waterthrush.

As I taped up the pages of the Yale Daily News I chuckled over the notice at the bottom of one page.  I'll bet nobody has ever recycled their YDN in quite this way before.  Let's just hope it works to keep the birds safe.

Be sure to check my earlier posting of today - two new warblers and an updated list.

New Birds Today!

I've been having a lot of fun getting to the coast in the past week for migratory shorebirds, but today I opted to do some serious birding on campus  ...looking for migrants here too...
A disclaimer - today's photos are neither mine nor Lynn's.

Common Yellowthroat, Geothlypis trichas

http://naturetales.blogspot.com/2007_08_01_archive.html

Lynn and I walked the fence line at the southeast corner of campus and pursued separate pockets of bird noise.  Down by the creek I had a new warbler, and in the thickets along the path Lynn had a new one also.
So our total list of warblers during lunchtime today:

Common Yellowthroat - two
Magnolia Warbler
American Redstart
Black-and-white Warbler - new!
Northern Parula - new!

For me it's fun to have to work at identifying these warblers; they're in fall plumage right now, and it's not immediately obvious what species they are.  So, I turn to the bird book and look for the field marks I just memorized - gray above, yellow below, two thin white wing bars, bright green lower back, faint vertical lines on sides, white around the eyes, white patches under the tail.  Flip the through the pages a few times, and it  becomes a young Magnolia Warbler.  Very satisfying.

Our list for the past two weeks follows:

Canada Goose
Red-tailed Hawk
Wild Turkey
Killdeer
Herring Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Northern Flicker
Downy Woodpecker

Northern Parula, Parula americana

http://www.stevenanz.com/Main_Directory/Recent%20Photos/2008/080531_Brooklyn/source/northern_parula_0960.htm

Willow Flycatcher
American Crow
Blue Jay
Tree Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Carolina Wren
American Robin
Gray Catbird
European Starling

Magnolia Warbler, Dendroica magnolia

http://www.outdooralabama.com/watchable-wildlife/what/Birds/wwt/mw.cfm

Cedar Waxwing

Northern Parula, Parula americana

Yellow Warbler
Magnolia Warbler

Black-and-white Warbler, Mniotilta varia

American Redstart
Common Yellowthroat
Northern Cardinal
Song Sparrow
Common Grackle

American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Black-and-white Warbler, Mniotilta varia

http://sdakotabirds.com/species/black_and_white_warbler_info.htm

Thirty two species.  Not bad for our workday birding efforts.

And we probably had a White-breasted Nuthatch and a Broad-winged Hawk today, but won't list them 'til the uncertainty is gone.

An early September gift

photos: S. Hochgraf

American Goldfinch nest

Earlier this week I startled a pair of American Goldfinches from their nest in a White Pine.  This very common little songbird has pretty interesting habits.

They tend to nest late in the summer - when thistle down (or similar plant fiber) is available for nesting material.  They also are one of the few songbirds to feed primarily seeds to the nestlings.

The female constructs the nest entirely on her own in a spot which is protected overhead from the weather, open on one side for quick escape to nearby cover - and - often visible from below - which was definitely true of this construction.

One egg is laid each morning until the clutch is complete.  This late in the season a clutch will be smaller than an early-season clutch.  I must have discovered the nest on day two of egg-laying (Tuesday), and to avoid disturbing the birds, I won't return until next week.

The female alone will incubate the eggs, taking only very short breaks.  The male will bring partially digested thistle (and other plant) seeds, and feed her on the nest.  Incubation may take up to two weeks, and the chicks will usually pip within a day of each other.

After two weeks of feeding by both parents, they'll be fully fledged and ready to leave the nest - within hours of one another.  The young will depend on the adults for food for an additional three weeks.  Have you been adding this up??  We're looking at the third week of October before the kids are on their own!

I've condensed all of this information from wonderful research compiled from countless hours of field work by many ornithologists - and presented in user-friendly format by the good people at Cornell's Laboratory of Ornithology.
http://bna.birds.cornell.edu/bna/species/080/articles/introduction
The photos are my own.
enjoy...
Sue