Tuesday was a cloudy and cool day and there was little obvious sign of new arrivals but there were still a bunch of birds around. I started the morning with a continued American Bittern at the house pumping away continuously before dawn (eBird list with recording here). I then made a quick stops at Winsor Dam and Lake Wallace before a longer walk at the rail trail where the best bird was a flyby Black crowned Night Heron. I spent a lot of time trying to relocate it on the ground but had no luck. Not sure it even stopped anywhere nearby. Despite the cloudy and cool conditions I still managed nearly sixty species. The mammals also put on a show with Beavers, Muskrats and River Otters among the highlights. At one point a Great Blue Heron flew onto one of the beaver lodges as a River Otter was circling the area and scaring up fish. The Canada Goose nesting on the lodge was not impressed with the heron being so close. This morning also produced the first of what will soon be many Canada Goose goslings...they are still in their cute, fresh out of the nest faze. The rest of the day I spent walking Wilson and doing stuff around the house.
Monday was another overcast day but with the promise of new arrivals as the migration conditions overnight were quite good (especially compared to the previous several days). My main focus for the day were warblers with 16 species found with the largest noticeable increase being in Black and White Warblers and Yellow Warblers. Many of the other species of warblers were represented by just a single individual. I also picked up a number of other new species for the spring but overall the numbers were lower than I would have expected given the date and weather conditions lately. Oh well...the big push will arrive soon I'm sure.
After getting out of work Sunday morning I started the month off making several stops to kick off May. I made my first stop at Silvio Conte NWR-Fort River where I had nearly 50 species but nothing too unusual. I then made a brief stop in Hadley to see if the Cattle Egret was still around and I quickly found it in a grassy field with some crows and was able to get photos of it (I failed to get photos when I saw it in late April). Then it was onto the rail trail and then a brief stop at Winsor Dam.
At home I noticed the arrival of House Wrens including a banded individual. It never ceases to amaze me that migrant birds can fly thousands of miles and then return to the exact same spot. I checked the duck boxes at the house and found a Hooded Merganser now sitting on eggs in Box #1 and still a large clutch of eggs in box #3. At this point it looks like the eggs in that box have been abandoned but I'll wait a bit longer before removing them. I didn't check box #2 this time as I didn't want to disturb the Hooded Merganser in that box. I did mount a camera on the base of box #2 and hopefully I will capture the ducklings when they fledge in a few weeks.
The camera on the water feature continues to catch birds plus a few mammals. I have had 21 species of birds at the water feature so far this year plus four mammal species.
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