Most of the Old and Some of the New

I had high hopes of spending a good deal of time this past loooong weekend outside, enjoying nature and our little flying friends. Sometimes though life and other loves get in the way and spending time with family, friends, and playing volleyball seemed more important. So, while I have little to report from the weekend, I will report something. I'll also through in a little bit about the weekend before when I conned an old friend into birding with me.

First off I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. After I finished consuming all the bird I could, I took a quick 25 minute walk into the woods behind my parents house. One of the first things I did was stumble across a Red-tailed Hawk who seemed to have already gone to roost for the night. She was very unhappy to have me disturb her and took off yelling the whole way. Of course the poor little squirrel she flew by freaked out for the next 5 minutes.

In the distance was a single woot call (could have even been a dog) but it seemed to get the Northern Flicker pretty upset who then made so much noise he upset his neighbor. A GREAT view of a Pileated Woodpecker! My father had seen it a couple of days before in the yard and it appears the bird has found enough food to hang around for a couple of days. After that the calls of both the Downy Woodpecker and the Red-bellied Woodpecker seemed to fill in the gaps.

The weekend before was a bit more of an adventure. I managed to get my friend Jeff to come out and look for birds with me. We've been participating in the Christmas Bird Counts for the past 12 years together.

First stop, Short Beach: Northern Harrier, Am. Black Duck, Great Blue Heron, Brant, Great Cormorant, Surf Scoter, and White-winged Scoter, Ring-billed Gull, Herring Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Mute Swan, White-throated Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, Northern Mockingbird, and..... Nashville Warbler. It took us a little time but we finally ID'ed it.

Frash Pond: Bufflehead, Black Duck, Canada Goose, Double-crested Cormorant, and a Canvasback.

A quick stop at the Sea Wall added: Horned Grebe, Red-throated Loon, and we heard a wren.

Last we headed over to the railroad tracks in Lordship to check out the National Wildlife Refuge: Palm Warbler, Red-tailed Hawk, and a couple of sparrows that were probably Song Sparrows.

It was a nice day and thanks to Jeff's scope I got some nice views of some great birds.