Hello All,
Today's Bird Song walk was also combined into a Birdathon event and it was a
very successful day with a lot of birds. The total species count was 61, which
is very good for a morning at Mt. Tabor. If I add the male BLACK-HEADED
GROSBEAK that was in my yard the total is 62 for me. Surprisingly, the best two
birds of the day were waterfowl, with one GADWALL and four N. SHOVELERS. That
may sound strange for a place called a "Mt." but there are the now
decommissioned reservoirs that attract waterfowl. It's fun to bird one's
"local patch" on a regular basis and observe the day to day changes in spring
migration. Two species whose numbers have decreased dramatically over the past
two days are NASHVILLE and ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLERS. They were around but
nothing like just a few days ago. We had nine species of warblers: the two
previously mentioned plus YELLOW-RUMP, BLACK-THROATED GRAY, TOWNSEND'S, HERMIT,
WILSON'S and MacGILLIVRAY'S. There were a few empids, mostly HAMMOND'S with at
least one DUSKY and a couple of PACIFIC-SLOPE. There were at least two
OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHERS. A TOWNSEND'S SOLITAIRE put in a nice appearance.
WARBLING VIREOS were present in good numbers and a few CASSIN'S were heard. At
least three WESTERN TANAGERS were seen. Very surprising was a late VARIED
THRUSH.
Good birding, Gerard
Gerard Lillie
Portland, OR
