Warblers and Wild Flowers at Houghton Garden

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

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.

May Apple (Podophyllum peltatum)

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