World Migratory Bird Day/Week

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 surprise - these birds are tough without a car. They often pop in quickly, feed for a bit, then resume their migration, sometimes flying hundreds - if not thousands - of miles non-stop. Warblers are starting to get good too, but I've just been getting them incidentally while going after shorebirds, which I'll do for another week or so - then it will be time to shift to songbirds, mainly. 

Anyways, I'm now up to 175 green species. I'm pleased with that, but there is still a lot of work to do. The miles are starting to pile up faster now that it's nice, I'm over 300 miles or so combined, and counting. So here are the bad photos I promised - enjoy, and thanks for reading - and happy (belated) World Migratory Bird Day/Week!

Hen Mallard nesting in the yard. Unfortunately, the nest failed.



Some distant Dunlin - if you squint, you can see their black bellies


Yellow Warbler - these guys came in bigtime - every tree seems to have a singing male


Rose-breasted Grosbeak - lots of these around too


Shorebirds - the big one on the right is the Hudsonian Godwit


Always fun to sift through flocks of "peeps". Easy, right?


Lark Sparrow


Blackburnian Warbler - always a favorite. 


Gray Catbird - always staying in the shadow

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