Day 19.087: Snow?!

This happened this morning:

Both the remote Exiles reported snow at their locations too. 

Day 19.086: Saturday morning birding

Our first stop on Saturday was to meet with our nature group. We visited four places at Biddeford Pool and observed birds and trees. Here are some of the birds we saw:

House sparrow

Piping plover (first of the year)

Eastern phoebe

Eastern phoebe

Great blue heron

Northern flicker

Northern cardinal

Great blue heron on the mudflats of the Pool

Song sparrow

Surf scoter (front)

Long-tailed ducks

Brant (second lifetime record and first of the year)

Common loon 

Brant

American black duck

Mallard

Red-winged blackbird

Gadwalls

Hooded merganser

Red-breasted merganser

Song sparrow

American wigeon

Belted kingfisher

Eastern bluebird

Double-crested cormorants (arriving in the area in numbers after their winter absence)

Common grackle

Common grackle (same bird - amazing color change when it turned around)

Great black-backed gull

Black scoters

Common eiders

Common eiders

Great blue heron

Brown-headed cowbirds

Northern flicker

House finch

Also notably seen but not photographed: golden-crowned kinglet and tree swallow (both the first records of the year for me).

Day 19.085: Exile #2’s Sunday Column #548

Exile #2 writes...

After a fun and busy Easter service this morning, we had an unexpected visitor! E5N1 came home to hang out with us for the afternoon. There was much sharing of music, including a choral piece he’s been working on, and we also called Exile #4, who is getting very close to the end of their time at college!

Day 19.084: Madison Cunningham Ace Tour

After a day that included our nature group visiting four separate birding spots and then decorating the church for Easter, Exile #2 and I rounded it off with a drive into the theater district in Boston to see Madison Cunningham’s Ace Tour at The Wilbur. It was spectacularly good and made the drive and parking - both of which were more eventful that we might have liked - very much worthwhile. 

Madison Cunningham and Jesse Chandler

Day 19.083: Phoebe and the turkeys

This morning I had a visitor just outside my office window. The first eastern phoebe of the year pumping its tail in classic fashion. I did my best to document it with my phone. 

And then, at lunchtime, we had turkeys getting in the springtime mood - at least the male was, the two females were either unimpressed or playing it cool. 

Day 19.082: Wisconsin birding

As I mentioned, I managed two short pre-breakfast walks with my camera half a mile down the road to some water and marsh habitat. The morning light was still a bit murky, but this is some of what I (and my camera) saw

Canada goose

European starlings

Muskrat (not a bird) (I saw at least two, maybe three)

I believe these are American wigeon

Red-breasted mergansers

There were hundreds of passing songbirds. Some were grackles, some red-winged blackbirds

This odd couple includes a greylag goose (feral). Afterwards I found that hybrids of these species exist, so they could be an actual couple

More passing passerines

American white pelican (near the eastern edge of their migration according to the map I found)

Great blue heron

American white pelicans

Common merganser loon*

I assume this is a low-rise Canada goose

Coming down near the “Caution Shallow Water” sign 

Nice size comparison with the Canada geese. These pelicans are big birds. 

At the nearby apartment building the house sparrows were building nests under the balconies. 

Both the American white pelicans and the American wigeons go on my life list unless I misidentified the latter. 

* Thank you to Josh for this correction in the comments!