Day 19.109: Spring bird walk #2

Here are some of my photos from the second of the season of spring bird walks at Laurel Hill Cemetery hosted by Saco Bay Trails:

Eastern bluebird

Chipping sparrow in full song

Common merganser flyby

The blossom was spectacular

Northern flicker

American goldfinch

American robin

Palm warbler

Eastern phoebe

(is this my better side?)

The daffodils on the hillside by the river are probably peaking right now

Mallards

Young bald eagle

Canada geese

Double-crested cormorant

Northern cardinal

Sudden drama between this mature adult and the young eagle previously perched in the tree

We had quite the aerobatic display for a few minutes

...then they seemed to just be flying peacefully together

Northern cardinal

Great blue heron

Not a good photo - but this was my first spotted sandpiper of the year

Day 19.108: Backyard birding (early spring)

After we got home from Saturday birding with our nature group, there were more bird sightings at home. 

 Brown creeper

Mourning dove

Yellow-rumped warbler

Red-tailed hawk

Red-bellied woodpecker

Palm warbler

Yellow-rumped warbler

Broad-winged hawks

It's great to have a pair of broad-winged hawks in the neighborhood for a third year. No sign of nesting in the location they've used the last couple of years so we'll see what happens.

Day 19.107: Saturday morning birding

Our nature group gathered on Saturday morning at the Cascade Falls trails. The birding highlight was listening to the distinctive songs of the winter wren (briefly spotted) and the Louisiana waterthrush (not spotted). No pictures of either of those birds, but here are some of the birds I was able to photograph:

Pine warbler

Four black-capped chickadees and at least one white-breasted nuthatch came to investigate our leader's pishing at one point. It made for some lovely views:

"What's that noise?"

Serious side-eye

(also wondering what's going on)

Palm warbler

Black-and-white warbler

Black-and-white warbler

Eastern phoebe

Day 19.106: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #550

Exile #2 writes…

It’s definitely warming up. The daffodils are out, and the forsythia. We’ve even dared to have the sliding door open from time to time over the last week or so, and every day it seems new birds return from elsewhere. As a consequence it’s getting pretty noisy.

Ours is not the quietest neighborhood. Until the trees leaf out, we can hear the highway, and the firehouse. Leaf blowing and mowing season seem to have kicked off already, and one of our neighbors likes to work on engines. But right now it’s the goldfinches making the biggest hullabaloo. As we sometimes see 20 or 30 of them at time they can really make an impressive amount of noise! But maybe more exciting was the sound I heard when I headed up to bed last night - a barred owl somewhere not too far away and another more distant one replying. Such a lovely sound, and nice to know they are near.

Editor’s note: this is my photo from a close encounter with a barred owl back in October 2024

Day 19.105: Composers Ensemble

It was the second semester showcase for the Composers Ensemble today. E5N1 played trumpet, sang, played percussion and composed one of the pieces. The whole concert is on YouTube. I think this link will take you to his piece at around 1:06:00: [link]. It was a great program with a nice variety of styles of music written for this unique collection of instruments.  

Day 19.104: Savannah at work

Not a colleague. A sparrow as I was leaving yesterday. Only my cellphone camera to hand alas

Day 19.103: Pine siskin

Last year, we bought a BirdWeather PUC and installed it on our deck to listen to and identify the birds it hears. It uses the same technology as the Merlin App. One of the birds it heard was the pine siskin, but although we looked among the winter-plumage goldfinches for a siskin imposter, we never saw one through the year.

I did manage to see (and photograph) a Eurasian siskin during our UK trip in March.

For a variety of reasons, the PUC was decommissioned for a while but we recently got it going again. And, once again, it was regularly identifying pine siskin calls. Today, our persistence paid off and - as we suspected - there among the American goldfinches was one of their streaky cousins.

On the life-list it goes.

The Latin name of the Eurasian siskin is Spinus spinus and the pine siskin's is Spinus pinus. I see what they did there. It's probably for the best if you pronounce it with a long-i like "pine" though.