Here They Come

Bird Board

Spring and migration have finally begun.  Our usual list of species over the weeks in winter ranges from 10 to 15.  Both this week and last have averaged about 25!!  It's great to see some of the warm weather birds coming back into our area.  Migration started off with the black birds, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle, and Brown-headed Cowbird, moving back onto campus.  And now this week we are starting to see the very first warblers trickling in, both Yellow-rumped Warbler and Common Yellowthroat have made an appearance.  I took a quick walk on one of these wonderful warm days.



Here are few shots:

Crocus flowering in front of the Collection Studies Center

Red Maple Flowers

Eastern Cottontail

Little white flowers on the remnants of the old cinder trail.

Savannah Sparrow (First of the year for WC)

"What are you doing?" American Robin

Song Sparrow taking a drink and looking for insects

Male American Goldfinch trying to hide in a pine tree
he may use as a nesting spot in a couple months.

Fall Birds and More

Silhouettes are often all that's
needed to ID a hawk.

Summer is slowly coming to a close; although, this weeks weather may well be some of the worst.  It's hard to think about fall when temperatures are supposed to be in the mid-80's all week.  But with a small storm predicted to come this weekend, what could follow is hawks, LOTS of hawks.


Hawk migration peaks in the months of September and October, most species picking a few weeks to move south.  Here in the Northeast, we are treated to something the West Coast never sees, the mass migration of Broad-winged Hawks. 

Red-tailed Hawk

You  can read past posts to see how our annual hawkwatches on campus have gone, the highlight being almost 2000 hawks flying by in one day.  No that isn't a typo, that day at other Connecticut sights the count was over 8000 birds.  This year our annual hawkwatch will be held in conjunction with one of the Peabody West Campus Community Education Center's nature walks.  On Friday, September 12th, educator Tom Parlapiano will lead a lunchtime hawkwatch program at the site of our annual hawkwatch.  Check out the West Campus weekly newsletter for more information.  Please Note: This progam is only open to Yale West Campus residents.

Osprey

If weather conditions are just right we may well have another spectacular flight like we did in 2011.  Either way, there should be a nice diversity of raptor species going by to learn some basic identification skills and see some unique interactions that only occur at this time of year. 

Species of raptor seen at past watches
Bald Eagle
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
American Kestrel
Merlin
Peregrine Falcon
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Red-shouldered Hawk
Broad-winged Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Northern Harrier
Osprey

It Really IS Spring!

After last years blast into summer temperatures, I've been happy to see some cooler temperatures lead into spring this year.  Although, it hasn't helped me be able to find time to post some blogs.  Let's just say that the birds are finally getting on campus.  A small group of us are heading out at lunch to put some time in the woods and hopefully pull some great things out.  BUT the species list for the year is already up to 55 with only a few warblers checking in already. 

Chipping Sparrow

Tom added Yellow-rumped, Palm, and Pine Warblers to the species total.  This morning I heard my FOY and the FOY for West Campus of Yellow Warbler.  The swallows have all checked in for the year, we've had flyby's of Barn and Tree.  Barn Swallows usually nest on campus although last year they nested somewhere near by.  As has happened that last two springs, a few Northern Rough-winged Swallows stopped by the Collections Study Center to see if there were any vacant holes in the wall to nest in. 

Northern Rough-winged Swallows

Rather than try to even recap the first part of the year I'll just give you a comparison.  This week in January we had 16 species on campus.  In February about the same time of the month we had 18 species for the week.  March this time, had crawled up to 22 species with some of the blackbirds showing up for the first time.  Here is the list of last weeks birds a total of 28 species! 


American Kestrel

April 15-19
Northern Cardinal, Song Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Black-capped Chickadee, Turkey Vulture, Blue Jay, Downy Woodpecker, Mourning Dove, American Crow, Brown-headed Cowbird, Rock Pigeon, European Starling, house Sparrow, House Finch, American Goldfinch, Herring Gull, Ring-billed Gull, Killdeer, American Robin, Dark-eyed Junco, Red-tailed Hawk, Northern Flicker, American Kestrel, Tufted Titmouse, Savannah Sparrow, Red-winged Blackbird, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, and Double-crested Cormorant!

It's a bird, a plane.. It's a CRANE!

I'm going to start out with the excitement for the week.  A brand new bird for the West Campus list, a brand new bird for my state year list, and only my 2nd ever sighting of one in the state, a Sandhill Crane.  Sandhill Cranes are an amazing group of birds that are found in a few different areas in North America.  To be a bit more specific there are about 5 or 6 subspecies of the Sandhill Crane in North America, two are isolated year-round populations in the Southeast.  One isolated population is also found on Cuba.  The other two or three are distributed in northern Canada, Alaska (also barely into Siberia), and out West.  The interesting part is that they mostly use the Mississippi River as a flyway or further out west for migration, so they don't really come to Connecticut that often.  The state does get a few records every year and luckily I got to add another one. 

Sandhill Crane 'record' shot  (photo: Lynn Jones)

The above picture is pretty horrible but it's a better look than I almost got with my binoculars.  The important features that pinpoint to the ID as a crane (that no other birds have) are the long dangling legs (to the right of the body) and the outstretched neck (to the left of the body).  Any other similar-shaped bird would fly with it's neck tucked in (like a Great Egret or Great-blue Heron). 

Other excitement for the week was ANOTHER new species for the West Campus list, one we have been waiting for: Winter Wren.  I happened to see one crisply moving in a shrub right in front of the A-21 (Collections Center) entrance. We also finally cleaned out the American Kestrel nest box.  Sue and I had attempted to clean out the box in the spring only to find a live although unresponsive squirrel in residence.  Thinking that maybe she was on a litter of babies, we left her in place.  Well cleaning out the box it appears the squirrel had in fact been sick.  We found a lovely decayed/ mummified squirrel carcass, gross.

Lynn heading to clean out the box, proper tools required (photo: Sue Hochgraf)

I'm not happy the squirrel is dead but I am happy to evict it!  (photo: Sue Hochgraf)

Squirrel Mummy (photo: Lynn Jones)

 Other than that we had an impressive 51 species for the week thanks to the efforts of both Sue and her sister Karen who is visiting.  They both put in a little extra birding this week to really help push our numbers to another top 5 week of birding, and that was with a rainy Friday.  Congrats ladies and thanks! 


Sparrow-things:
Northern Cardinal
Eastern Towhee
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco

Migrants:
Killdeer
Common Grackle
Eastern Phoebe
Cedar Waxwing
Blue Jay
Northern Flicker
Gray Catbird
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Palm Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Brown Creeper
Hermit Thrush
Swainson's Thrush
House Wren
Blue-headed Vireo
American Robin
Brown-headed Cowbird
American Kestrel
Merlin
Red-tailed Hawk
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Cooper's Hawk
Turkey Vulture

Black-capped Chickadee

Tufted Titmouse

Canada Goose
American Goldfinch

Other things:
Downy Woodpecker
Mourning Dove
Rock Pigeon
Northern Mockingbird
American Crow

Fish Crow

European Starling

House Sparrow
Wild Turkey
Herring Gull

Ring-billed Gull

Common Raven



Yellow-rumped Warbler (photo: Lynn Jones)