I spotted a brown thrasher briefly at my bird feeder today but I heard it singing a lot longer. The thrasher’s voice carried from its high perch in the top of the tree and the male brown thrasher has a very large song repertoire, with over 1,100 documented and estimated to be over 3,000. They also imitate other birds songs, especially during the breeding season.
Singing Brown Thrasher
One male Baltimore Oriole has arrived from the south as the trees are starting to leaf out.
Returning Oriole
This weekend was the opening of the fishing season and it looks like this kingfisher wanted to get in on the action. But he didn’t find any fish in my pond, or at least I haven’t spotted any this spring after the thick ice over the winter. So the Belted Kingfisher had to snack on some bugs instead. The males are less colorful than the females as the female also has an additional rusty orange band on her belly.
Belted Kingfisher
These are some young barn swallows before leaving in the fall and today I saw the first barn swallow back. Actually I heard it before seeing it just outside a barn. The adult barn swallows have a longer forked tail than these juveniles. Soon the nest building will occur and new eggs will be laid for another season.
Juvenile Barn Swallows
With the sunshine appearing this afternoon, I spotted a bird darting about catching insects near the pond. The little warbler is another recent arrival to its summer breeding ground. The Myrtle Yellow-rumped Warbler flashes its patches of yellow in the sun as he flutters after insects.
Warbler Watching
I think the cold, wet weather has delayed some of the spring bird arrivals, but the Killdeer has been back for a while now. I always hear the Killdeer long before I see it and when I see them, it is normally in flight as they blend in with the ground cover even with their white band. Early naturalists called the noisy bird the Chattering Plover and the Noisy Plover.
Hidden Killdeer
A pair of geese were in the creek under the fallen willow tree at the farm and another pair of geese made a visit to my pond. I spotted a red-winged blackbird today but it might want to head back south if there is much snow tomorrow. And in a few more weeks, they will be squawking at me when I approach my pond as they like to nest in the cattails there.
Red-Winged is Back
The geese are making their spring return too, although I only saw four fly overhead today and they haven’t landed in my frozen pond yet.
Geese Coming North
I saw a pheasant in the road ditch and I heard more of them calling in the woods, so there might be be a little bit of spring fever in the air.
Pheasant in a Tree
The chickadees sounded a bit more cheerful today once the temperature finally made it above zero, but they weren’t too happy when I interrupted their seed feeder time.
Cheerful Chickadee
