Late August fun

Beautiful morning at Nahanton Park, with quite a good variety of birds. An empidonax flycatcher at the lower garden fled before I could id or photo it, but this accommodating Yellow-bellied Flycatcher was in the upper garden margin. Also there I found a Great-crested Flycatcher and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo.

Lots of Baltimore Orioles, Catbirds, and Black-and-white Warblers around, a little flock of American Redstarts at the lower garden along with a Common Yellowthroat ... and, near Woodcock Field, this Chestnut-sided Warbler:

The pond held two Solitary Sandpipers

No sparrows other than Song, but 30 spp altogether!

Looking for migrants...

Baby Catbird

I will combine by last Sunday and this Sunday's sightings.

Last week was 65 degrees and this week was 73 degrees, both days fairly sunny.

Last week the highlights were a red tail hawk and a blue gray gnatcatcher as well as a common yellowthroat.

This week, as I started in the lower gardens, it was very quiet. At first, I wasn't sure I would see anything.

Finally some song sparrows and goldfinches turned up. There was a lot of hubbub near the bird houses that have their backs to the golf course. Ian turned up and we couldn't see any movement at all, but it certainly sounded like a lot of babies just out of a nest. We decided it was most likely a brood of house wrens due to the nature of their chatter.

Common Yellow-throat young

I saw a common yellowthroat that appeared right in front of me. I think it was a young one and then at least 3 American Redstarts which were beautiful.

We had a hummer, a chipper, robins, cardinals and blue jays.

The upper gardens had several hummingbirds, goldfinches, flickers, barn swallows, baby house wrens and chipping sparrows. In the woods that take you down to the soccer field, we saw Eastern phoebe, White-breasted nuthatch and a male oriole.

Female Hummingbird

Down by the soccer field were some titmice and more redstarts, chickadees and Ian saw a warbling vireo.

A photographer that has been coming a lot recently has saw an indigo bunting last week and after Ian and I left, he came upon a pair of Cedar waxwings which we had missed.

So not much in the way of migrants, but they will be coming through soon!

August movement

Beautiful morning at Nahanton Park, first time I've been there in a while. Right off, a pair of female Orchard Orioles surprised me, perched high in a tree near the lower garden. There were several Baltimore Orioles around too, quiet now so harder to find.

There were lots of dragonflies around, including this Blue Dasher...














and this male Common Whitethroat

There are still some Yellow Warblers around, and a lot of Common Yellowthroats

Also, several American Redstarts were singing but not visible, and Flickers are coming through in numbers. Some years Northern Mockingbirds don't show up here, but there was one today: