This morning I helped my dad set up set up beds. Then at about 8:30am I went outside and sat down with Max. Soon I heard a long, uneven rattle coming from a moderate-sized bird with a thick bill, perched on a tree above the an open marsh beside our house. I looked at all the sounds of woodpeckers in North America but none of the sounds compared to what I heard. I heard that same sound but this time I noticed it was a harsh, unsteady clatter. I remembered what a kingfisher sounded like, from a camping trip last year to Cedar Beach. Once again I looked in the Sibley Guide to Birds and found kingfishers. The silhouette I saw in the tree and the sound it made, obviously made it a Belted Kingfisher. Just to be 100% sure it was, I researched it in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. With all of my information it was for sure a kingfisher. Next I heard a call similar to a Song Sparrow but it was clearly different. I looked in Sibley's Book and searched all the similar species for Song Sparrows. There I found the Winter Wren, but as I was reading that page, a sparrow caught my eye, again it was similar to Song Sparrow but there was something different about it's breast. The only bird that matched up to it was a Black-throated Sparrow, but they only live in the Sonoran Desert. How could one end up here, I must have made a mistake, but I can't seem to match the bird I saw with any other birds in Sibley's Book. Anyway, back to the wren, Body, Soul and Spirit (Ruth) and Mon@rch (Tom) had recently seen one of these so there was no point of researching, the Winter Wren migrates through here every spring. Up to northern Ontario to southern Northwest Territory and Yukon. I'd heard this sound only once and it was far away so I couldn't figure out what habitat it was in. I came back in with max at about noon, had a snack and helped my dad unpack (we've just moved last Saturday.) From now on when I write total species of birds and the end of a post I will put a question mark beside if I'm not 100% sure, otherwise the bird was seen for sure.
Total Names of Birds Seen:
Red-winged Blackbird
Northern Cardinal
Black-capped Chickadee
Brown-headed Cowbird?
American Crow
Mourning Dove
American Goldfinch
Canada Goose
Common Grackle
Boat-tailed Grackle? (Check for 2009)
Herring Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Great-blue Heron? (check for 2009)
Blue Jay?
Dark-eyed Junco
Killdeer
Belted Kingfisher (Check for 2009)
Mallard
White-breasted Nuthatch
Eastern Phoebe? (Check for 2009)
American Robin
Black-throated Sparrow? (Check for Life List)
House Sparrow
Song Sparrow
European Starling
Winter Wren (Check for Life List)
Total Number of Birds Seen: 19 species, 7 ? species
Goodbye,
Birdman
