Saturday, May 30, 2009

Brain Fried But Bird Happy!


Today was my first outing doing the bird survey and it was SO interesting! I have never heard so many birds at one time!! My survey partner knows the birds' calls well so she picked up many more than I could. It was great to know what birds were calling out around us that we couldn't see. It was exciting to hear woodpeckers drumming on the trees.

We saw a lot of birds; many spotted towhees, American Robins and red winged blackbirds. There were black headed grosbeaks, northern flickers, some winter and house wrens, song sparrows and what she thought were cedar waxwings, though with my stupid binoculars I couldn't tell and I was frustrated because I had never seen one before!!

I got to see a red breasted sapsucker, which I had never seen before and the best one was a great horned owl!! Never seen one of those either - SO COOL!

The area is like a little forest set down in a neighborhood, just 5 minutes away from where I live. There's a pond and last week when I went to find and scope out the site I saw a blue heron and some mallards. No water birds today though.

The day was perfect weather wise and my partner was friendly and knowledgeable. However, I had no idea of how physical it was going to be making our way through and under all the growth! Even though we were on little paths, it was uneven ground. We were there for two hours and i didn't want to leave. With my fibromyalgia, I have to be careful about doing this kind of stuff so I am very tired and achy tonight.

BUT IT WAS SO WORTH IT!! I can't wait until next Saturday for part two of our survey!

And by the way, I promptly went out afterwards and bought a new, inexpensive pair of binoculars that are MUCH better!!!

1 comment:

David R. Lindquist said...

A great report! Sounds like it was a good outing. I envy you some of those species -- three of them I have never seen. And Waxwings in summer!! We only get Cedar Waxwings, really, in winter. If it helps, I only see them near parking lots where there are fruiting decorative trees! Maybe you can find some of these to check out. They're pretty irregular so give it time. Very best regards---David in Cary NC