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| White Trillium or Wake Robin (Trillium grandiflorum) |
In my
second blog post when I visited
Houghton Garden in the winter, I mentioned that it seemed like a good place for spring warblers. So yesterday morning I decided to visit on my way to work. While driving over I was listening to my Peterson field guide CDs "Birding by Ear" and trying to learn the waterthrush songs, which was very fortunate because the first song I heard when I got out of the car at 9am was the song right after the waterthrushes! It sounded like the two-parted song of the
Nashville warbler which would be a first of year for me (more on this in a minute).
Upon entering this small piece of habitat I was able to find black-and-white warblers, yellow-rumps, and an
American redstart (the picture is from earlier this week in Boston) were the only warblers that I was able to see. Up in the trees were plenty of black-throated blue and northern parula song, though they stayed up in the canopy and never decided to show themselves. And down in the bushes a skulking common yellowthroat sounded off. Then while standing by the little damn
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| American Redstart |
that keeps the pond full I heard another song I had only just listened to, the 3-parted song of a
Tennessee warbler. Now this was a lifer for me. I tried in vain to see the Tennessee but had no such luck. While I was excited to add the Tennessee warbler to my life list, I later noted that it isn't a common bird around Newton. Pete and Haynes both have most of the ebird sightings which primarily come from Cold Spring Park and Nahanton. In addition to warblers, I was also excited to see and hear a stunning Baltimore Oriole.
While many of the birds refused to be seen, Houghton Garden's flora was earning its keep. The ferns are all coming up with a wide variety of foliage forms (one day I'll figure out how to identify them) and many woodland flowers were evident. I was particularly impressed with the trillium specimen, but later learned that trillium (and especially
trillium grandiflorum ) are victims of their own popularity with gardeners. They have become threatened as most (if not all) plants available were harvested from the wild. I took pictures of some in hope that I might be able to identify the flowers (Do you know what the flowers below are?).
When I got home last night I listened to recordings of the Tennessee and Nashville warblers and am no longer sure about the Nashville's ID. When I have time later I'll another post with recordings and spectrograms.
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Warbling Vireo 1
Blue Jay 1
Black-capped Chickadee 2Tufted Titmouse 2
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
American Robin 10
Gray Catbird 3
Black-and-white Warbler 1
Tennessee Warbler 1
Nashville Warbler ?
Common Yellowthroat 1
American Redstart 1
Northern Parula 3
Black-throated Blue Warbler 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 1
Northern Cardinal 2
Common Grackle 2
Brown-headed Cowbird 2
Baltimore Oriole 1
American Goldfinch 2
House Sparrow 5
