Thrush City in Florida!

Hi Wisconsin Bigby-ers! I just wanted to let you know there are plenty of migrants around the Tampa area and they are coming north! I just had a singing Scarlet Tanager, Blue Grosebeaks but only Blackpoll Warblers. The best bird was a Dickcissel which is very unusual for our area.

I plan to kayak after some birds and bike 6 miles to the park on the beach for some shorebirds. I'll try to get some photos to add to the blog.

Happy Birding!

GHOW nest thanks to Al, and Black and White Warbler

you can see a lot just by looking...

Bird banding at UEC was canceled today due to the cold and wind and I decided to take the time I would have spent doing that and walk to Lake Park and continue my frantic efforts at catch-up-BIGBYing and stalk the elusive American Bittern (which I believe I must have walked past at least TWICE while birding with Tim Vargo yesterday). While looking for the equally elusive Palm Warblers in the trees above the Locust Street Ravine, just to the north of the bridge over the ravine road I heard a commontion above me, looked up and was starled by a low flying Bald Eagle being mobbed by three or four crows - what a marvelous surprise! Paul Hunter, who was birding in the ravine itself , also saw it.
You just never know...
Oh, no Palm warblers, did find a Pine Warbler.

Locust Ravine rocks!

Before leaving home for Lake Park this afternoon, I FINALLY saw my first Blue Jay of the year fly over the yard making the typical Blue Jay racket. Hey, if you had structural blue coloring, you'd make a racket too. Plus, have you ever heard them mimic a Red-tailed Hawk? Dead ringer.

At the end of two hours combing through Lake Park's Locust Ravine (long after Tim and Maria had departed) I was lucky enough to find the American Bittern that Sam discovered yesterday. What a beautiful bird! She was doing her absolute best to look like a stump (above), and for the multiple groups of kids that walked past her without noticing, she may as well have been. It's always so strange to see bitterns in the utterly wrong habitat during migration. Who could forget the Least Bittern that was perched 40 feet up in a tree at Riverside Park a couple of years ago? These are the best looks I've had at these secretive denizens of the marsh. I hope this bird got enough rest and refueling (what was she eating in this ravine?) because the last I saw of her after she was flushed by a man and his dog, she was leaving Lake Park headed to the southwest. Maybe she'll spend a few days along the Milwaukee River Greenway.

The ravine was exceptionally birdy tonight, producing four new Bigby birds in addition to the bittern (Red-headed Woodpecker, Field Sparrow, Red-breasted Nuthatch, and Eastern Towhee). I do love to see the Red-headed Woodpeckers return to Lake Park each year. If more local parks and small woodlot owners would leave snags standing rather than compulsively cutting down each and every "hazard tree," this declining species of savannas would be in better shape. As it is, it was one of four Species of Greatest Conservation Need (along with American Bittern, Field Sparrow, and Brown Thrasher) in Locust Ravine tonight--once again highlighting the importance of migratory bird stopover habitat in an urban landscape. If only there was a Citizen Science research project that was examining the importance of such sites to migratory birds...

high water on the Menomonee River - and a few birds, too

The Menomonee flows into downtown Milwaukee through a valley that was wetlands - extensive marshes - 200 years ago. During the build-out of urban Milwaukee, the valley became heavily industrialized, and much of the valley landscape was "brownfields" by the late 1980s. One of the world's largest and busiest railroad yards was here a century ago. But the valley is undergoing a resurgence of both new industry, and at least a thin ribbon of green habitat for wildlife along the River. The Hank Aaron State Trail follows the river through this burgeoning industrial resurgence, and you can ride or walk along that ribbon of greenspace. It's one of the few greenspaces near where I live, so I headed there today - the river was exceptionally high from this weekend's heavy rains. The urban runoff flows over an awful lot of impervious surface to end up in the river - and heavy rains make the water level rise over a foot in depth very quickly. The normally muddy/gravelly river bank was inundated, making it difficult to find food for some birds. New BGBY species for me (to add to my very abbreviated list! - none of these except the goldfinch ever appear in my neighborhood) were Green Heron, Mallard, Red-winged Blackbird, Red-tailed Hawk, Barn Swallow, N. Flicker, Song Sparrow, Great Blue Heron, Am. Goldfinch, Brown-h. Cowbird, and Downy Woodpecker - all common species to most of the BGBY participants, but not present in very urbanized environments...EXCEPT along and in this ribbon of green adjacent to the river.

White-throat, white-throat, white-throat, bittern?

Hey folks,

Biked up to Lake Park around 11:30 AM today. Things definitely got off to an intersting start when I ran across a Wild Turkey on the way along Terrace Ave, south of North Avenue. At Lake Park, I was surprised to see a huge increase in the number of birds compared to yesterday. When I first arrived, I lucked into a pretty good-sized migrant flock. Mostly YR Warblers, with a few Palms and single Pine and Nashville Warbler. The flock also included two Blue-headed Vireos. A pair of RB Nuthatches remained near the warming house long after the flock had departed.

Definitely a huge influx of White-throated Sparrows, with a couple of Field mixed in here and there. I would (very) conservatively estimate 200 individuals in the three hours I was at the park, with birds in every area of cover and several flocks of 30+ birds seen throughout. Also quite a few more Brown Thrashers, at least 10 (up from 1 yesterday), and easily 15 Eastern Towhees (I had none yesterday). Hermit Thrushes still numerous, but only managed one Winter Wren in Waterfall Ravine.

I was working south through Locust Ravine with my eyes on the ground, picking through the WT Sparrows (hoping for maybe a Harris', or perhaps a Louisiana Waterthrush working the creek), when an American Bittern flushed off of the west side of the ravine. I froze, and backed out, looking for a birder I had run into earlier. While he had disappeared, I fortunately ran into Judith Huf, and together we searched for the bird. We scoured the ravine, and even looked along the easternmost bluff (the direction the bird had originally flown), with no luck. We were heading back towards the feeders to try that bluff further when we spotted the bird in a tree, near the wooden bridge by the warming house. The bird was hunkered down in the wind, but would raise into a camouflage pose whenever a passerby would pass underneath (it was about ten feet up, two or three feet off of the path). I've never done much digiscoping, but with a little practice, I was finally able to get a decent picture on my cell phone through my binoculars. I worked throughout the rest of the park for about an hour, and when I returned, the bird had dropped into the ravine, tucking next to one of the footbridges in the ravine between the two feeder stations.

Definitely a good day to get out! Love this time of year!

FInally!

If you would have told me two months ago when this started that Blue Jay would be my 91st bird of the year, I would have called you crazy... until it took until April 23rd for me to finally grab one. Other highlights on today's rainy, cold walk included quite a few Hermit Thrushes, numerous White-throated Sparrows, Brown Thrasher (92), and a Red-breasted Nuthatch.