Andy's Green Big Year

Bobolink in a pasture Things have slowed down quite a bit, as expected with the end of spring migration. It's also been hot and rainy - and I've been busy at work. I've still managed to get out a few times though, with varying success.  The weather was decent on the Juneteenth holiday so I decided to do a ride. I had two options - head to the Rapids Lake unit of the nearby National Wildlife Refuge to try for Eastern Meadowlark and Black Tern, or stay closer and try for a Pine Warbler that had been reported at a small park not too far away. My decision was made for me that day as river flooding pretty much eliminated the refuge as a possibility.  The trails at Spring Lake Regional Park It was a pleasant ride over, with the "usual suspects" bird wise. Red-eyed Vireos, Common Yellowthroats, Great Crested Flycatchers, and other common species were singing as I biked through Spring Lake Park. After getting through there, I pulled up to the small park where the Pine War...

  Green Heron getting ready for a day of hunting frogs and such It's been a busy last week or so at the job, and the weather has been hot and hazy with smoke from wildfires up north, so I haven't been birding at all since last weekend. However, the summer doldrums are rapidly approaching - and the weather forecast looked great for Thursday - so I decided to use some leave and do a day of birding back at Murphy Hanrehan. Several species on my needs list there - Cerulean Warbler, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Virginia Rail, and a White-eyed Vireo that someone else found were on my mind. Plus, an Eastern Screech-Owl was reported there during the evening by a researcher doing moth work at night. I figured I'd get up early and try to start the day by getting that bird. The alarm sounded at 03:30 and I crawled out of bed. Not super excited for a 13-mile ride to start for sure. But I made it work. It was a pleasant morning and the ride was easy. However, even though I got there at 05:15, ...

  Last day of May - four Prothonotary Warblers! One of my milestones that I hoped to meet when I started this Big Year thing was to get 200 species by the end of May. As the final weekend of May approached, I was sitting at 198 species. There were (and are still) lots of great birds showing up at Murphy-Hanrehan, where I went last weekend. Cerulean Warbler, both cuckoos, Mourning Warbler, Virginia Rail, and a handful of others that I still need. It's a longer bike ride though and kind of a pain with construction. Plus, Thursday was "leg day" at the gym, so my legs were somewhat gelatinous. I decided to head over to my main (much closer) hotspot, Louisville Swamp. Somebody reported a Cerulean Warbler there also, and I was hoping to snag an Olive-sided Flycatcher as well, with all of the nice structure along the wetland bluff. My bike ride over was rather eventful, in a good way! I didn't leave as early as I wanted because I needed to air up the tires a bit, and I could...

Changing into a summer coat After a while mostly away from home and/or home with rotten weather, I took the opportunity to get out and ride today. What a beautiful day! So nice to have more "normal" weather for a change.  I decided to head over to a local hotspot, Murphy-Hanrehan Park Reserve, which is close to where I used to live. This relatively large block of forested, grassland, and wetland habitat is a great spot for migrant warblers and also has breeding Hooded Warblers, Acadian Flycatchers, and sometimes Cerulean Warblers. Migration is definitely winding down here so I figured I had better get out and try to get stuff before it was gone until fall.  I got up early to try to get there around dawn. It was a very early alarm - ugh. But I managed to peel myself out of bed and get on the bike. I will admit I was not feeling it at first. Even an immediate pick up of several birds at a nearby grassland (Grasshopper Sparrow, Sedge Wren, and others) in the emerging light did n...

Brown Thrasher at his post - singing away Good morning, everyone! It has been crazy last few weeks. As I often tell friends, May is both my favorite and least favorite month. So much is going on, all at once. Still, having peak bird migration is a special time and I always try to soak it in as much as I can. After all, we only get a limited number of these in our lives.  This post will be short and (bad) photo heavy, but here's a brief synopsis of what I've been up to green birding wise. I've been heavily focusing on my local go-to spot: Louisville Swamp. I'm trying to do my best to get as many shorebirds while I can. It's been going pretty well! I'm up to 17 species of shorebirds now for my green list. I still have some work to do there, but I've found some good ones. I've swept the "peeps" with a couple of White-rumped Sandpipers that were in a nice flock of mixed shorebirds and lucked into a Hudsonian Godwit as well. That was a great surpris...

This week was a pretty active week - lots of new arrivals, and I was able to get out a good bit and enjoy it. I visited nearby Louisville Swamp twice since my last post, and also rode my bike into work again. Last weekend of April, I ran down to Louisville Swamp hoping for some shorebirds and maybe some grassland birds on a kind of last minute trip in the late afternoon. People had been reporting American Avocets, and I was hoping to see some of this relatively early species before they mostly moved on. I rounded the final corner and looked down the road- smoke! The Refuge staff were just finishing up a prescribed burn. The conditions were perfect for them and it had gone well, but that pretty much dashed any hopes I had of grassland birds that day. They had just opened the trails back up, so I headed down to the water. Nice mix of dabblers Unfortunately, there weren't many shorebirds to speak of, which was disappointing. Lots of waterfowl though. There were a few Northern ...