Birding

We love to travel to find new birds and participate in a lot of bird counts. We also created a Guide to Birding Field Guides and host a collection of over 300 birding links from all over the globe.

Conservation

While our main focus continues to be birds, we promote other areas of conservation as well. Conserving land not only benefits wildlife, but is hugely beneficial to people as well.

Outdoors

We love all sorts of outdoor activities, especially hiking and spend a lot of time outside with dogs and horses. We are working to produce more articles on all sorts of outdoor fun!

Photography

Every week we bring you Bird Photography Weekly. We periodically talk about our adventures in digiscoping. Feel free to browse our photo lifelist.

Article in: Birding

CNP Update: Sparrows, Sapsuckers, and More

Spring finally hit this past week with warm temperatures and lots of bird song. Unfortunately, the warmth comes and goes..there is even a possibility for snow this weekend. But nonetheless, spring has come. Each day seems to bring in new birds to our Callaway Nature Preserve, so we plan to update each Thursday.

Fox Sparrows have arrived! They have such a beautiful sound. Our high count is three at one time.

Fox Sparrow
Fox Sparrow

The Dark-eyed Juncos are still flitting around and one Song Sparrow has joined the Fox Sparrows. They are finding a lot of food, but there is quite a bit of standing water due to heavy rain on Tuesday. More rain is scheduled to dump 1-3 inches today (Thursday). Spring has soggily sprung!

The other big highlight this week was a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker that drilled a few sap holes in our birch tree. In this same tree a Downy Woodpecker pair has been working on a hole.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Downy Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker

We’ve also had several Northern Cardinals, American Robins, and a Common Grackle (which aren’t that common in our yard, but are in the area). The American Goldfinches are molting into their fine gold plumage. Each passing day brings the excitement for new birds and a larger mix of wonderful avian music.

Okay, Crocuses (or Croci) aren’t native…but they’re still pretty and are the only flowers blooming so far.
Crocus or Croci

6 Comments or Trackbacks   ↓ Jump to add comment ↓

  1. Michael Nelson says:

    I also have been seeing Fox Sparrows over the last few days. I don’t recall a year where I have seen so many however that could just be me being super enthusiastic this year and getting out alot more. Love your photo of the crocuses.

    Posted on: April 10, 2008 @ 9:42 am

  2. Melissa Gold says:

    Beautiful birds, Sparrows are so cute :D

    Posted on: April 10, 2008 @ 10:07 pm

  3. Brownstonebirder says:

    So you’re the one hogging all the Fox Sparrows!We don’t get to see them often enough around CT.-very nice!

    Posted on: April 13, 2008 @ 1:51 pm

  4. The Zen Birdfeeder says:

    I’ve also had my highest-ever count of Fox Sparrows with seven! I love the cinnamon-grey color of these great birds.
    Still waiting on my sapsuckers.

    Posted on: April 13, 2008 @ 8:36 pm

  5. Lana says:

    Hooray for crocuses! I sooooo miss them. <:(

    Posted on: April 14, 2008 @ 2:40 am

Trackbacks

  1. CNP Update: More Spring Arrivals — Birdfreak.com

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment