Glad to be back at the Park!

I was away for the week and though I saw some great birds in North Carolina, I missed the park. I see that Haynes had some great sightings!

It was a beautiful morning - about 68 degrees. Pleasant, cool and a little bit of fall in the air. The flowers blooming right now are some of summer's last; sunflowers, sundrops, goldenrod, chokeberry, sumac and jewel weed. Soon it will be our native asters.

The pond is all dried up and I couldn't even manage to see a sandpiper today. The soccer field was mostly filled with robins searching for worms, but I did manage to see an Eastern kingbird family flitting about.

The upper and lower gardens were filled with similar birds today. Many catbirds, chickadees, robins, downies, goldfinches, hummers, house finches, cardinals, mockingbirds and bluejays. I think some orioles are passing through because I saw several including a few females or possible juveniles. Of course the song sparrows were plentiful and I saw one that must have been a young one practicing its song, because it was definitely not there yet!

Before moving to the upper gardens, I heard the song of a Carolina wren, but having never seen or heard one at the park before, I wasn't sure. I tried to track it down and found the bush where the song was coming from. I decided it was probably a mockingbird tricking me but all of a sudden, a tiny little bird emerged from the shrub, looking very bedraggled as if it had been caught in a storm. It had the tell-tale white eyebrow and it sang some more as I watched!

The upper garden had at least one Phoebe hanging out. Many of our regulars were there and lots of chasing going on with mockingbirds and orioles. A female hummer was perusing the sundrops getting ready for her long flight. No sign of our bluebirds. Have the babies fledged yet?

Just as I was leaving, I caught a glimpse of this bird drinking water from this tub. I know it's hard to see in the photo to the left, but I was so excited. It was my best ever view of an American redstart!!!! And there were two of them!