It's a Beautiful Morning

Golden Ragwort

I love this time of year! Birds are singing and flowers are blooming. I'm identifying old birds and new birds by their songs, a personal goal of mine. Yesterday was Williamsburg's Spring Bird Count day, so I spent a good deal of time on the deck watching and listening. My husband popped out at one point and said it sounded like the Wild Kingdom our there.

Once the trees leaf in I hear more birds than I see, so want to know their songs. Right now a Pileated Woodpecker and a House Wren are the loudest characters out there. And I hear somebody new. That will drive me crazy for a few hours now. I think it's the Yellow Warbler. Oh! I hear a Red-eyed Vireo! Here-I-am. Look-up. In-the-tree. Here-I-am.

NQP Bird Walkers, April 26, 2011

I'm happy to be able to identify an old friend, the White-throated Sparrow, by his call. It was familiar to me, but I hadn't put the sound and the bird together until the April 26 Bird Walk at New Quarter Park. Oh my, Canada, Canada, Canada. Thanks, Jan.

I have three bird houses in the yard and all are productive. Six Carolina Chickadees recently fledged from the Bluebird house in the front yard. I have two houses in the back. A House Wren started building in Wren House by the garden and another is building in the Bluebird House that I see from my desk, just off the deck. An Eastern Bluebird has been coming by and looking in the box.

 

A quick Google on the topic of bluebird v. wren reveals that bluebirds are more timid and therefore lower in the pecking order than the twitchy and scoldy little House Wren. I've seen Eastern Bluebirds evict Chickadees, but not House Wrens. Oh well. I do know that Bluebirds are nesting in my neighbors yard, so I'll have to watch the blues there ... and, of course, on the Bluebird Trail at New Quarter Park, where we are expecting a dozen or so eggs to hatch this week!