Hi Folks,

I haven't posted on any yard happenings here in Ferndale since early June, 
but that doesn't mean that things haven't been interesting.  Our daily lists 
have been on average significantly higher this year than in summers past, 
buoyed by the almost daily visits of hummingbirds and White-breasted 
Nuthatch, neither of which has been seen here during previous nesting 
seasons.

On Friday, 25 July Elaine and I saw our first RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER this 
month, a delightful gray-headed juvenile.  Monday, 7/28 was an important day 
in our yard when we had our first ever, but long-expected CATTLE EGRET fly 
over (yard bird #132 and #114 for the year).  While Cattle Egrets are very 
local throughout the state, northern AA Co. is one of the easier places to 
find them, and I'm expecting to see groups of them in the Cromwell business 
park near the airport any time now.  Also on Monday a huge immature Cooper's 
Hawk (must be a female) made a pass through the yard, terrorizing all the 
feeder birds, then kept an eye on things by circling overhead for a while. 
The coops are here throughout the year, but get pretty scarce during nesting 
time.  Our last interesting bird for Monday was a flyover adult HERRING 
GULL, a bird we had not seen over our yard since early May.  Oh, and the 
COWBIRDs.  Bill Hubick mentioned to me the other day that they are beginning 
to congregate in his yard near Fort Smallwood; we are having the same 
experience, with numbers into the twenties every day recently.

In past years, 28 species was our biggest tally for any day in July. 
Earlier this month we upped that number by one with a one-day count of 29 
species.  Yesterday (7/29), however, with all kinds of post-breeders flying 
around, we clobbered our previous July high with a count of 34 species 
in/from the yard, higher than any summer day here ever (June, July, Aug, 
Sep).  Our first BLACK VULTURE since mid-June cruised around high overhead 
in the early afternoon, keeping company with two TVs.  A RED-SHOULDERED 
HAWK, our first in several weeks, came zipping over the yard without 
upsetting the feeder birds, but sure had the crows and jays asquawk.  Never 
got a good look at the bird to determine age, but it vocalized a few times. 
Our first RING-BILLED GULLs since May flew over late in the morning, one 
adult and one imm.  Then a real joy for us was a noisy family of 
GREAT-CRESTED FLYCATCHERs, at least three of them, hopping around one of our 
oak trees for a while; they've been absent since mid-June.  The window of 
time between 4:30 and 5:00 p.m. was intereting when eight PURPLE MARTINs 
came over the house, our biggest yard count ever.  They were joined by a 
handful of BARN SWALLOWs which have been fairly regular over the past week. 
This bodes well for finding some of the scarcer swallows in the next week or 
two.  Finally, we had our first CEDAR WAXWINGs of the month fly over in the 
late morning, just two of them, but maybe we'll start to see them on a more 
regular basis, as in the Spring.  I have included the complete ebird report 
for the day below.

I've been doing a bird count over the yard for the last hour or two of 
daylight almost every day for the past three or four weeks.  I'm usually 
pretty tired from kayaking, cycling, or working in the yard, and it's fairly 
mindless and relaxing.  I get mostly grackles, starlings, and robins, often 
hundreds of each, but I also often get herons, swifts, swallows and Fish 
Crows at this time.  It was good to see the seasnon's first report of 
Nighthawk from Worcester Co.; I'll be counting these birds pretty soon as 
well.

Good (yard) birding,

Stan Arnold
Ferndale (AA Co.)


> Location:     Marianave Ferndale
> Observation date:     7/29/08
> Number of species:     34
>
> Great Blue Heron     1
> Black Vulture     1
> Turkey Vulture     1
> Red-shouldered Hawk     1
> Ring-billed Gull     2
> Rock Pigeon     33
> Mourning Dove     14
> Chimney Swift     4
> Ruby-throated Hummingbird     2
> Red-bellied Woodpecker     1
> Downy Woodpecker     2
> Northern Flicker     1
> Great Crested Flycatcher     3
> Blue Jay     4
> American Crow     1
> Fish Crow     1
> Purple Martin     8
> Barn Swallow     4
> Carolina Chickadee     3
> Tufted Titmouse     1
> Carolina Wren     2
> House Wren     2
> American Robin     23
> Gray Catbird     2
> Northern Mockingbird     1
> European Starling     229
> Cedar Waxwing     2
> Song Sparrow     3
> Northern Cardinal     9
> Common Grackle (Purple)     216
> Brown-headed Cowbird     24
> House Finch     12
> American Goldfinch     3
> House Sparrow     5
>
> This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
>