Last Sunday's morning walk around SSW had a couple of interesting birds in
retrospect.
First, from the Sherwood platform we heard a few repeated "fweep"s of a Great
Crested Flycatcher. eBird wanted a confirmation, which reminded me of the CBC
trip earlier this spring to Bear Swamp where we also heard repeated fweeps and
thought GCFly but the caller turned out to be a blue-headed vireo. Sunday's
fweeps came from the direction of the feeder blind where we'd earlier seen a
BHVireo high in a tree, so I wonder if that was the caller. There were no
preeting or other vireo phrases or anything else to reaffirm one bird or the
other.
Next, after the group had thinned down and we walked back past the Owens
platform a brilliant Carolina wren perched near the two nestboxes, very close
and prominent at eye level showing off its reddish back and distinct eyebrow.
But when it opened its bill it started to voice the beginnings of a house
wren's bubbly song - a song very familiar to that corner of the trail. I
scratched my head a bit and asked the other participants, all beginners, to
confirm that it looked like the Carolina wren picture I showed them. It wasn't
until this morning that I realized what I saw was a marsh wren! - a bird I'd
mentally relegated to the status of "probably never gonna see it, just be happy
learning its song", and so haven't actually studied its appearance in the field
guides. (I had seen wrens pop briefly out of cattails in Texas that I assumed
were Marsh wrens, but the looks were fleeting and they looked rather drab and
ratty, not clean and brilliant like this bird.)
Other interesting sightings that day were a very cooperative Philadelphia vireo
by the parking lot (the only migrant tree-flitter that I could get everyone to
see), and a solitary sandpiper hunting the now-mudflats at the Sherwood
platform. And for the hummer-trackers a buzz-by at the VC entrance.
Suan
--
Cayugabirds-L List Info:
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES
http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm
ARCHIVES:
1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html
2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds
3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html
Please submit your observations to eBird:
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/
--
