This year I have scheduled all of the 6 walks for this week at Col Sam Smith Park. Each spring for a few days before and after May 24, flocks of Whimbrels wing their way past here en route from the south eastern North Atlantic coast to their breeding grounds on the western shores of Hudson’s Bay and further west.
No luck yesterday, but this morning (10 degrees and raining at the start) we were rewarded with a flock of about 40 birds which flew fairly near us in tight formation on a couple of occasions.
Robins were much in evidence including this recently abandoned egg shell:
Here is a new born awaiting tail feathers to grow:
This bird stopped to rest on a Tree Swallow box:
This one struggled to pull a worm out of the ground:
This bird appears to be undergoing a moult:
Other birds:
Species list: double-crested cormorant, red-necked grebe, Canada goose, mute swan, mallard, American black duck, whimbrel, spotted sandpiper, ring-billed gull, common tern, mourning dove, chimney swift, northern flicker, eastern kingbird, tree swallow, rough-winged swallow, bank swallow, barn swallow, northern mockingbird, gray catbird, American robin, European starling, warbling vireo, red-eyed vireo,Tennessee warbler, northern parula warbler, yellow warbler, common yellowthroat, chestnut-sided warbler, house sparrow, red-winged blackbird, brown-headed cowbird, common grackle, Baltimore oriole, northern cardinal, American goldfinch, indigo bunting, song sparrow. (38 species)
Park scenes:
This morning’s group:
NATURE POETRY
Dark hills at evening in the west,
Where sunset hovers like a sound
Of golden horns that sang to rest
Old bones of warriors under ground,
Far now from all the bannered ways
Where flash the legions of the sun,
You fade–as if the last of days
Were fading, and all wars were done. -Edwin Robinson