Sunday, November 4, 2012

The Post-Sandy Yard Birds

As hurricane Sandy approached, many birders were thinking about searching for sea birds blown north by the storm. I on the other hand was just busy battening down the hatches. I spent most the day inside and peeked out a few times. Early on, before the winds got too strong, there was an intrepid mockingbird guarding the locust tree and chasing off the few sparrows that ventured out. Later on, I was looking out of the windows and startled a few robins, who were hunkering down in the bushes under the window.

White-throated Sparrow
 The morning after Sandy, I slept in a little before venturing out to check out the damage. We were fortunate enough (this time anyway) not to have a single branch down or shingle out of place. But I was mostly amazed at the tremendous amount of bird activity. They all must have been blown off course or were starving after riding out the storm. I could hear song fragments of white-throated and song sparrows, so I wonder if these were males born this spring practicing their craft. I even caught a glimpse of a beautiful white-throated sparrow specimen with very clean white, crisp black, and a bright yellow lore spot (unfortunately not the one I got a picture of). A family of chickadees and a white-breasted nuthatch worked the cedar trees, while the white pines sported some starlings, and to my surprise, two male red-winged blackbirds, a first in the yard. I was at first skeptical, as they were so high up, but I caught glimpses of colored patches on the wing, so who else could it have been? In the shrubs I found a cardinal, blue jay, and house sparrows, while down in the grass there were a few robins and juncos. Just as I was heading off to work, a mockingbird flew overhead, so I knew that she at least made it safely through the storm.

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