Hi Folks,

Yesterday morning when stepping outside our Ferndale (AA Co.) house, I 
thought I heard a Fish Crow flying over.  Then I heard it again, and again, 
and again.  The source of the sound was atop a pine tree at the edge of the 
yard where several American Crows have been slipping in and out for weeks. 
Later in the day while dawdling around the yard I heard the same sound, a 
nasal utterance, made every minute or two for an hour or more.  I seriously 
doubt this was an adult crow or one of their adolescent helpers.  I believe 
we have a hatchling crow (or crows) as of 3/23/08.  I bring this up, because 
the early egg date found in the Yellow Book is 3/13, so a hatch date of 3/23 
would suggest an earlier egg date by up to a week, though I do not know the 
incubation period for crows eggs.  I believe it was the third week of 
February when we saw the crows carrying sticks in our yard for nest 
building.

Speaking of nesting, our Carolina Chickadees have now completed their nest 
of moss and fluff in the same nest box that they've used for the past two 
seasons.  We are expecting eggs at any time.

Elaine and I are now just about to wrap up our second season doing Project 
Feederwatch through Cornell Laboratory.  This is where you pick a specific 
observation area (in our case our back yard--roughly 1/3 acre), and count 
for two consecutive days each week, and submit your data, much like e-bird 
data.  This count includes only birds that come to your feeders or are 
attracted to some other feature of your yard; it does not include flyovers. 
After nearly two years of feeder-watching, the highest number of species we 
ever recorded for the count was 25, about this time last year.  This weekend 
brought an influx of birds to our neighborhood, and we finished the count 
with a new high of 27 species for the two days, and had an additional 10 
species as flyovers, making for a very good weekend.  The submitted 
feederwatch data were as follows (all seen on Sat., 3/22 unless otherwise 
noted):

Cooper's Hawk--1 juv (3/23)
Mourning Dove--19
Red-bellied Woodpecker--pair
Downy Woodpecker--3
N. Flicker--1
E. Phoebe--1 (second of the year)
Blue Jay--3
Am. Crow--3
Carolina Chickadee--2
Tufted Titmouse--2
Red-breasted Nuthatch--2
Carolina Wren--2
GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET--1 (first of year)
Am. Robin--4
N. Mockingbird--1
Eur. Starling--4
Cedar Waxwing--18
Fox Sparrow--2
Song Sparrow--3
White-throated Sparrow--20
Dark-eyed Junco--19
N. Cardinal--18
Common Grackle--105
BH Cowbird--2
House Finch--11 (2 with eye disease)
Am. Goldfinch--5
House Sparrow--1

Our first CHIPPING SPARROW of the year came on Tuesday, 3/18, but only hung 
around for three days, so was not available for the feederwatch count.

Saturday (3/22) was our best March day ever in the yard.  Besides the 
feederwatch birds, we had our first MALLARDs of the year, three of them 
flying at tree-top level to the northeast, and then 15 minutes later flying 
back in the opposite direction.  Near dusk, a flyover GREAT BLUE HERON was a 
yearly first, and shortly before it came a fairly low flock of about 15 
ducks.  I only had a second or two to watch it; the birds were smaller than 
mallards, but larger than teal (the rapidity of their wing flaps may have 
contributed to this impression); some of them had dark heads.  I cannot say 
with certainty what they were, but I believe they were Shovelers.  Seeing 
these ducks prompted me to get out my scope and set it up in the front yard. 
This was fortuitous, because in short time I watched a mass of birds off to 
the east, and a quick look in the binos told me they were small ducks--about 
60 of them heading north.  A look in the scope revealed that they were 
GREEN-WINGED TEAL, only our second duck species on the yard list, a new yard 
bird, # 119, and species #51 for the yard year list.

Sunday (3/23) brought a flyover juvenile HERRING GULL over the yard, our 
second of the year, and another distant mass of ducks at dusk, which I could 
not identify.  An adult BALD EAGLE soared over "downtown" Ferndale (the 
intersection of B&A Blvd with Welham Ave.) at midday, but we could not see 
it once we got back home to the yard.

YARD PLANTINGS

In our effort to create habitat, last year Elaine and I planted 250 white 
pine saplings around the periphery of our acre yard.  Sadly, only about 25% 
of these trees survived the summer drought.  Once I realized the little 
trees were stressed, it was too late to save them.  Summer travels during 
critical dry periods did not help us.  Also, the trees were so spread out, 
that watering them was quite laborious.  This year we are trying a new 
stategy.  Since the state nursery does not offer trees for fall planting (at 
least the trees we are interested in), we have decided to plant this year's 
trees in a tight array, and will attempt to keep them alive through the 
summer with soaker hoses, and then transplant them in November to their 
permanent locations, where they can take advantage of winter moisture to 
establish themselves.  This weekend we planted 50 spruce, 50 white pines, 
and 50 loblollies.  We will see how the new strategy works.

Guess that's enough for one posting.  Looks like spring weather ahead.

Stan Arnold
Ferndale (AA Co.)