About 10am this morning I went to Sapsucker Woods on my own, hoping to find some of the birds which Mark Chao reported yesterday after the rain (and I and my group) had quit. Today I had intermittent light rain, and I was fairly successful, although I wouldn't call the birds teeming today.
One of my first observations was a single complete song of a COMMON YELLOWTHROAT ("wee-a-witch-y, wee-a-witch-y, wee-a-witch-y, wee-a-witch-y") quite close and clear, from the wet brushy area under the powerlines on the Dryden side. I never saw the bird, nor heard it again, despite some searching.
I eventually found lots of noisy RUSTY BLACKBIRDS in the front and back yard of 143 Sapsucker Woods Rd (the second closest house to the Lab) and a similar noisy group in trees and on the ground west of the Sherman Platform. There also were fewer of them, but also noisy, north of the Lab building, and finally I saw some relatively quiet individuals feeding near the Podell Boardwalk (close to the first site).
Twice I saw scattered groups of YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLERS moving through the treetops in the woods on the Dryden side. I found no other warblers among them, but in one group I did find at least one singing RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET. I later had a better look at this species, a quiet individual along the Dryden side of Sapsucker Woods Rd very near where I heard and saw my first NORTHERN WATERTHRUSH of 2011. My second Northern Waterthrush was heard only in the wetland between the Lab building and the Wilson Trail to the north.
By walking nearly every section of trail in Sapsucker Woods, I saw a total of 3 HERMIT THRUSHES in various places, all on the Dryden side. This is about par for me, finding a quarter of the dozen Hermit Thrushes Mark found yesterday, although I can feel pretty good about equalling his number today. I missed the Veery.
There was a male PURPLE FINCH singing from a treetop full of large buds near the stone egg.
There was a lot of YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER activity: drumming, calling, flying, and I even saw an interaction among 3 individuals close together on one tree. Eventually 1 bird flew off, leaving the other 2, but I found the action hard to follow otherwise.
I saw BROWN CREEPERS in 3 locations and heard song once. At one of the Creeper locations, the north end of the boardwalk (forgot name) in the Dryden woods, I heard and saw a single GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET. An EASTERN PHOEBE was near the south end of that boardwalk, probably nesting below.
I heard what I suspect was a PINE WARBLER singing from just south of the large storage building (Lucente's?) just east of Sapsucker Woods from the East Trail south of the pavilion.
Near that pavilion I saw movement in a pile of dead wood, but I think instead of a Winter Wren it was an actual mouse or shrew.
--Dave Nutter
