Weekend Update

Male wood duck in tree!

When I arrived at the park on Saturday, I was greeted by the "teacher, teacher" of the ovenbird. It was in the woods right near the parking lot. I walked in to the woods a few feet to look for it and when I looked up, imagine my surprise when I saw a wood duck on a branch overhead! I thought wow - this is a good way to start the day.

As it turned out, it took at least twenty minutes of looking for the ovenbird, even though it was right overhead, when finally it hopped to the ground very close to where I was standing. Its camouflage is so perfect for the leaf litter they scrounge around in. I got a really good look at it and then it disappeared into the woods.

Two different wood thrush were situated on trees in the lower gardens on either side of the area that has now been hacked up and has the compost bins and they each stayed on their same branches and sang for over three hours!

The lower gardens were so busy, that I barely got to the upper gardens. There were lots of yellow warblers singing, house wrens bubbling, male and female orioles, robins, flickers, catbirds, blue jays, tree swallows, red winged blackbirds and some savannah sparrows. I caught a glimpse of the American redstart and had a long and close look at a beautiful chestnut sided warbler. Saw more than one magnolia warbler and a northern parula. As I thought about heading to the upper gardens, I saw something high in a tree. I was hoping to see the black-billed cuckoo that someone saw on Friday, but instead, it was a beautiful indigo bunting - my first sighting in breeding plumage.

Sunday, before the Mother's day bird walk, the only thing I saw that we didn't see later of note, was a beautiful white-crowned sparrow.