Hi Folks,
I've lived in Ferndale for 13 years, and have never seen a migration like
this one. I've never seen spring rainfall like this, either, so I figure
there must be a connection. More than 13 inches of rain at BWI so far this
month, which is almost four months worth of rain. And this is following the
three previous months with nearly 8 inches each. In other words, we've
already gotten nearly an average year's worth of rain in four months.
Thinking that our big days in the yard were over for the year, I was
flabergasted to tally 46 species yesterday, tying our second highest ever.
When I got home from work, Elaine was excited to tell me of her new
discovery for the day, making an allusion to the Tom Hanks movie "Castaway."
"A WILSON'S WARBLER!" I exclaimed. Yup, she got closeups of the little
yellow warbler with the black cap. This just fits right in with the
multitude of sightings only a few miles away at Fort Smallwood and Bill
Hubick's place. She also saw our FOY GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER, a good two
weeks later than last year's first sighting.
Today in the rain, the parade continued. Elaine was able to photograph an
orange bird that flew from the feeder pole up into one of the trees. They
were distant shots, but we studied the photos this afternoon, and the thick
yellow bill on the bird made it apparent that she had photographed a SUMMER
TANAGER, either a very orange female, or perhaps a young or molting male,
but I'm not familiar with the molt cycle of these birds. Later, when I got
home from work as we walked the periphery of the yard I heard several times
the very clear two parted song of a NASHVILLE WARBLER, but could not coax
the songster out of the treetops for a look.
Last year the catbirds just breezed through during migration, and did not
hang around. This year we have two pairs nest-building in the yard. Maybe
they like our new crop of strawberries. Despite netting over the plants,
every third ripe berry seems to have been sampled, and we were greatly
entertained by a catbird working a big berry in the driveway the other day.
We haven't had White-breasted Nuthatch in the yard since the first day of
April, and I was tickled to hear one last week. Well.....I later discovered
that one of our catbirds is very adept at doing the yank-yank of the
nuthatch. Does a pretty good phoebe as well, along with an amazing sheep's
Baaaahhhh.
We continue to get multiple species of warbler, Swainson's Thrush, and
Common Nighthawks. A summary of the last three days follows.
Sun., 18 May:
Great Blue Heron--3 flyovers
Green Heron--2 flying over together
Cooper's Hawk--1 chased a dove through the yard; these hawks had not been
around for nearly 6 weeks
Common Nighthawk--3
E. Wood-Pewee--1 flycatching form our dead snags
Red-eyed Vireo--1
Swainson's Thrush--1
Black-throated Blue--1
Blackpoll--2
Am. Redstart--2
Scarlet Tanager--1 singing male
Chipping Sparrow--1; they disappeared for a couple weeks, and have now
returned
36 species for the day
Mon., 19 May:
Red-shouldered Hawk--1 adult circling over neighborhood, harrassed by a
bunch of grackles
Common Nighthawk--2
E. Wood-Pewee--1 around all day
GREAT CRESTED FLYCATCHER--1 (FOY)
Red-eyed Vireo--1
Purple Martin--2 flyovers, male and female (scarce here)
Tree Swallow--1 flyover (scarce here)
Barn Swallow--4 flyovers (irregular here)
Swainson's Thrush--2
Magnolia--2
Yellow-rumped--2
Pine--1
Black-and-White--1
Blackpoll--2
Am. Redstart--2
WILSON'S WARBLER--1 male (yard bird #129)
Chipping Sparrow--3
White-throated Sparrow--1 scraggly straggler
46 species for the day
Tue., 20 May:
Ring-billed Gull--33 flyovers, all immatures, mostly in one large loose
formation
Common Nighthawk--1
NASHVILLE WARBLER--1 singing (yard bird #131)
Magnolia--1 male working many trees all afternoon
Black-throated Blue--1
Blackpoll--2
Am. Redstart--1 male around all day
SUMMER TANAGER--1 (yard bird #130)
Chipping Sparrow--2
35 species for the day
I will hate to see this spring migration end, but then maybe I can get some
work done.
Stan Arnold
Ferndale (AA Co.)
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