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Of the four new year birds for him the best was one of several Nelson’s Sparrows at Big Egg Marsh, always a great bird to see, and Corey saw several very well as the high tide forced them out of the marsh. Corey had a great weekend of birding, from morning flight on Saturday to an exploration of some nice coastal habitat on Sunday.
Jochen knows why I thought it was important to share this Yellow-crowned Night-Heron at Big Egg Marsh. This Song Sparrow really liked the mulberries. (It’s It’s hard to find something interesting to say about Song Sparrows. . With a reflection in this image too! Birds can come in for a meal and a drink!
In that spirit I present some of the common birds I have seen of late, birds that I expect to see on almost every outing in my area, birds that a birder can depend on.
Though sparrows tend to be the main focus of mid-to-late October birding here in New York City there are still plenty of other birds to see like the Eastern Phoebe up above. Kind of a dull example of the species but it was still a Lark Sparrow ! Ammodramus sparrows are my favorite sparrows. More sparrow!
Of olde, it was known as the Hedge Sparrow to separate it from the House and Tree Sparrows. Confusion with the sparrows is understandable, given the plumage and their tendency to feed from the ground. Familiarity makes them easy to separate from the sparrows, even at a distance. Now it is classified with the Accentors.
If you know what one sparrow looks like you know generally what all sparrows look like. Scrambled eggs, drug fumitory, clasping venus’s looking glass, false garlic (than what is it exactly?), All related. Not so for wildflowers. Their names are all over the place.
Brown-headed Cowbirds evoke strong feelings in many birders, some of whom can’t abide a bird that lays its eggs in other birds’ nests, often to the detriment of the nest owners’ offspring. But I miss the open land with skies never ending And the challenge of laying eggs in a nest with defending.
The pair may have to compete for nesting cavities with several other species including native Tree Swallows and Violet-green Swallows, as well as non-native House Sparrows and European Starlings. The female alone incubates the usual 4 to 6 eggs for about two weeks beginning the day the last egg is laid.
Over the years you may have learned to know better but it’s spring and you’re hopeful and maybe this time it’s an unfamiliar sparrow of some kind… but after maneuvering carefully around to a line of sight, it’s that furry little air-raid siren the Eastern chipmunk again. You sigh and move on.
Late March in my home borough of New York City is typically when Eastern Phoebe , Pine Warbler , American Woodcock , Osprey , and other early migrants are back but many of our wintering birds, like Snow Goose and American Tree Sparrow , are still sticking around. And, like this one, many are extremely cooperative as they focus on foraging.
Corey did just this in this 2011 posting about Vesper Sparrow Pooecetes gramineus in New York State. You can see the Species Account for Henslow’s Sparrow above, in the banner photo. The most common bird in the state is the Song Sparrow, followed by Chipping Sparrow and Red-eyed Vireo, with American Robin coming in fourth.
After such a mysterious bird, it is time to enjoy the simple pleasure of seeing ordinary birds such as the Eurasian Tree Sparrow. Finally, the Azure-winged Magpie raises a hen-and-egg question: What was first, the color of the bird or the color of the Tibetan prayer flag? Unfortunately, I did not manage such a photo this time.
Both Pine Warbler and Prairie Warbler were breeding in the pines for sure, with the former’s trilling song in hearing at the same time as that of the Chipping Sparrow , which was good practice for my ears. Seaside Sparrows were incredibly abundant in the saltmarsh west of Gordon Pond. It was great! I have rarely seen so many.
I started the day at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge hoping for rails (I heard and saw none) and then made my way to Strack Pond on the western end of Forest Park where I was pleased to find White-crowned Sparrows and a Solitary Sandpiper. I hit my shin pretty hard on a stump on the way down. Birding, it’s dangerous !
Orange-billed Sparrow – Arremon aurantiirostris. Jamaica Bay, Big Egg Marsh. Jamaica Bay, Big Egg Marsh. Jamaica Bay, Big Egg Marsh. Jamaica Bay, Big Egg Marsh. Jamaica Bay, Big Egg Marsh. Jamaica Bay, Big Egg Marsh. Jamaica Bay, Big Egg Marsh. Jamaica Bay, Big Egg Marsh.
Due to heavy rains many clutches of Great Crested Grebes had failed, but we observed both nests with eggs (and left the area immediately) and adults with chicks, some of them piggy-backing their mothers.
While I can’t convince myself to be excited about my First-Of-Year House Sparrows , almost anything else is exciting. In spite of our proximity, it spent a good while positioned as if it had eggs there. I can’t resist loving my first week of birding each year. Was it practicing?
Every spring I look forward to monitoring my bluebird trails when I not only get to watch Western Bluebirds develop from eggs to fledglings, but other cavity nesters as well.
Five hatchling House Sparrows in a Happy Meal box,” said Johanna Walton, also in Connecticut. “Apparently she found a fallen American Robin ‘s egg,” she wrote, “and kept it in there for two weeks! “Three hatchling American Robins in a plastic slice of pie container,” said Bonnie Alexander in Connecticut.
A Tufted Titmouse “Peter-Peter-Peter&# ed from the trees and a big flock of White-throated Sparrows made their “Oh-Canada-Canada-Canada&# sound more like a lament for a lost land then a cheerful expression of nationalism. At least it made for a sunny Easter egg hunt… Get to Esopus Bend Nature Preserve.
This tiny village was very quiet and we enjoyed some local bread with scrambled eggs and coffee while birds like Varialble Hawks, Southern Lapwings, Austral Thrush, House Sparrows flew nearby. We went to Farellones town looking for breakfast and found two places that offered food. Austral Thrush.
And for the first time, I saw a Bronzed Cowbird (which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests) checking out one of these nests. Black-chested and Stripe-headed Sparrows , Yellow-winged Caciques , Northern Beardless-Tyrannulets , Thick-billed Kingbirds , Golden-cheeked Woodpeckers , Varied Buntings , they all showed up.
”* And then, my bird club friends started talking about alternate warbler songs and sparrow dialects and I thought, “Really? And, that sparrow I heard in California that sounded so different really is a Song Sparrow?” There’s more than one song per warbler?
Corey decided on a mission this weekend: he would get his Nelson’s Sparrow for the year. Nelson’s Sparrows are only reliably found in Queens in mid-to-late October, when they migrate south: they are usually found in saltmarshes. So on Sunday morning he looked at Big Egg Marsh, which has a larger amount of saltmarsh habitat.
With a hardiness that belies their delicate looks (but helps explain their phenomenal success), these pioneering pigeons are already sitting on eggs at at least one location in Montana. So right now I’m feeling pretty good about Eurasian Collared-doves. It’s just that the exceptions are so much more attention-grabbing.
This happened to me recently on a birding trip, with somewhat egg-on-the-face results. I was on a birding quest trip with my friend Geoff Heeter. We were driving up to northwestern Michigan from our homes in Ohio (me) and West ByGod Virginia (Geoff) in search of a bird species that would be a lifer for both of us: the Bohemian Waxwing.
Speaking of pregnant snakes, do sea snakes lay their eggs ashore like sea turtles or do they keep them internally until the young are ready to hatch/ be born, like some sharks? These do lay eggs on land and are (reasonably) mobile once they hit the beach. It seems like there is great diversity in this continent.
Using ministerial connections he obtained 100 mallard eggs from the US and began to breed and distribute them. Species can arise by hybridization – the Italian Sparrow is thought to be one. Female Mallard, photo by Corey. There the matter may have remained, but for a gentleman named Cecil Whitney.
318 – Burrowing Owl , 16 May 2019: An unbelievable find and a thrilling chase, this bird at Big Egg Marsh was as as astonishing as it was unpredicted. But if I can get a Henslow’s Sparrow in Queens why not a Sedge Wren ? And it was only one day after the shrike, which is always nice. (4 4 out of 5!). 4 out of 6!).
This pair of Phainopeplas have built a beautiful nest, complete with two speckled eggs. Black-throated Sparrow. In the 45 minutes we were on the property, we identified 19 species, two of which are endemics, and located my first ever nesting pair of Phainopeplas right there on the property. Xanthus’s Hummingbird. Phainopepla.
But Northern Cardinal, Catbird, and White-throated Sparrow do not appear until the 270s, during a visit to Central Park while on business trip to New York City. According to eBird, the chronology of my life list includes White-Headed Woodpecker at No. 10, Mountain Quail at No. 11, Wandering Tattler at No. 41, and Black Oystercatcher at No.
I like sparrows. I like observing them, reading about them, grappling with species and subspecies identification, and even—on a good day—talking about sparrow taxonomy. The book does not include House Sparrow, an Old World sparrow that belongs to a completely different bird family. Scope of Book. Mexico border.
before discovering that russet means “reddish-brown in color” Takes some of the mystery out of the Russet Sparrow , I am afraid. As a consequence, even though the Verditer Flycatcher does not discriminate against foreign eggs, no cuckoo species has found a viable way to turn it into a useful stepparent.
African Harrier-Hawks, snakes and other predators frequently raid weaver colonies to rob the nests of eggs and chicks. Plocepasser – the Sparrow-Weavers The localized Donaldson-Smith’s Sparrow-Weaver is found in arid woodlands of the Somali-Maasai biome. Image taken in Samburu, Kenya by Adam Riley.
Seaside Sparrows were singing on both sides and occasionally popped up to give us a view before diving deep back into the Spartina grass, hopefully getting ready to nest. Seaside Sparrow. At the end of the road, we found two Nelson’s Sparrows who quickly flew out to a tiny bit of land in the channel. Eastern Meadowlark.
Of course, it is hard to resist looking at a paper titled “Host personality predicts cuckoo egg rejection in Daurian redstarts” Basically, the personality of a female redstart (bold or shy) predicts the responses to parasitic eggs – bold hosts are more likely to reject parasitic eggs.
Stories abound of House Wrens going so far as to destroy other birds’ nests, even puncturing their eggs, in order to procure potential nesting locations so I really wasn’t surprised but I was entertained.
While this is a very charismatic bird, the Southern Grey-headed Sparrow emphatically is not. On Quora , one question asked (presumably not by a sparrow) is “What does he mean by I have a beautiful soul?” ” This sparrow does not want to hear it has a beautiful soul.
As I watched, it slowly moved into a patch of dried vegetation and I noticed that it was settling over a single egg. Two or three eggs may be laid and either bird may incubate. Sondra Mar 22nd, 2011 at 6:29 pm AN excellent series and how COOL to see the egg–chicks will soon be in the picture! I am around to learn more.
For some reason Felonious Jive shared Seagull Steve’s Best Bird of the Year: One of the reasons Seagull Steve went to North Dakota last summer was to spend some time with Baird’s Sparrows. They may be drab, but their pleasant ringing song and close relationship to the prairie make for a very interesting bird.
In the slightly frighteningly named journal “Science of The Total Environment”, there is a paper on organochlorine compounds in Purple Heron eggs nesting in sites located around a chloralkali plant (Ebro River). Summary result: relevant chemicals emitted by the plant can be found in the eggs. Bye, bye, Lesser Coucal.
Like crows and jays, they are social, vocal, intelligent, and omnivorous (including eating eggs and nestlings). There were birds to watch but they were the gulls and ducks on the river, the sparrows in the fields, the finches that came to the feeder, the beautiful American Kestrel on the roadside wire. Yes, this bird acts like a jay.
But it happened at that moment that a lot of what I was looking at was avian in nature: a few crows, some sparrows, blackbirds, and other run of the mill inner-ring suburb fliers and flitterers. I’m sure there were a lot of insects in range of my eyeballs, hiding behind leaves or camouflaged against bark as insects are wont to do.
This led to a correspondence with Spencer Fullerton Baird, then assistant secretary of the Smithsonian, the mentor of many naturalist/scientists of Ridgway’s generation, himself a disciple of John James Audubon, and, yes, the Baird of Baird’s Sparrow. Baird, Brewer, Cory, Bicknell, and Worthen all make appearances.
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