Monday, July 13, 2009






With hopes of finding a pair of previously spotted Dickcissels at the county landfill, small group of us headed out for what we hoped would be a relatively easy re-location of the Dickcissels and then we could scout out the rest of the area for any uncommon birds might just drop by the ever popular landfill.
We got to the last known location the bird was spotted and the first thing we came across was this very proud Coopers Hawk with his breakfast. Several in the group half joked the it looked like the Cooper might have beat us to our quarry. Dead birds don't count. Maybe it was it still breathing? Anyway, nobody could ID breakfast and by this time Cooper had had enough of us staring at his breakfast. and decided to have his "to go."

We all spent some time combing the area for the now elusive Dickcissel. Success was finally ours when Jeff was able spot a pair in the high grasses not too far away from where the Cooper had been successfully hunting earlier.

And while it is leap to assume what breakfast was, it is interesting to note that the photo Jeff took shows that the Dickcissel is conspicuously missing his tail feathers. hmmmmmmm.




















Sunday, July 12, 2009

Summertime



































Bird Listing has slowed down dramatically since the end of May. After finishing up with 33 new birds for the year by May 31. June netted one new bird for the year, a Eastern Wood Pewee, can you guess what vocalization it makes? This brought my yearly total to 169. I had several misses, with birds that were spotted in the area but moved on before I had a chance. Black-billed Cuckoo, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Summer Tanager (this would have been a nice one) plus several warblers.

In July so far I have only been able to add one bird but it was a great bird for me , a pair Dickcissels . A hard bird to find because they have the unusual habit (or actually no habit at all) of never returning to the same breeding area. While with many species you can almost set your watch to with their return or exit to an area. The Dickcissel, it was explained to me, never returned to the same place. While we have a pair in the county this year we may not see this bird again for several years. All in all #170 for the county - 2009. # 195 on the county life list and number 224 on the over all life list.

Ahh. God's plan worked out to the tiniest detail. He even kept the birder in mind when He designed migration. With little to chase I can focus on the garden, hanging with my peeps and enjoying other summertime pursuits.