The Birds Keep Coming!

Last weekend I headed up to Audubon Center of the North Woods for a work retreat. The birds were a treat. At first we saw the same of suspects. There were downy woodpeckers, black capped chickadees, grackles, mourning doves, red-breasted nuthatches, song sparrows and juncos. LOTS of juncos. When we started to hike around we also saw hermit thrushes and took a closer look at some of those sparrows that were everywhere. True, lots of them were song sparrows but not all of them. I noticed one looked very orange. I knew it was something different. Paul Ron and I identified it as a La Conte sparrow. There were a number of them around the property. When people heard that we had seen one they came out to look with us as no one had ever seen one. Some of these folks were life-long birders so it was fun to see them get so excited. We soon realized that there were also savanna sparrows around the buildings as well. While up the I saw an osprey hovering while looking for food and a yello bellied sap sucker. Both were firsts of the year. On a hunch I scoped out a litter ephemoral wetland after lunch and saw my first Black and White Warbler of the year. There was a female Northern Shoveler in the pond but sadly no male. I was bummed to not see a Harrier (aka marsh hawk) at the marsh that another group saw. Luckily we spotted two of them on the drive home! We also saw several cormorants flying near a rookery along Hwy 35.

Yesterday, Tuesday April 29th I saw an eastern towhee while doing a roadside clean-up for work. No, photos, sorry. Great news though, my new digital camera arrives this week! Look forward to lots of photos!

2008 Running Bird Tally
71 La Conte Sparrow
72 Savanna Sparrow
73 Osprey
74 Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker
75 Black and White Warbler
76 Harrier
77 Double Crested Cormorant
78 Eastern Towhee