Around the Neighborhood in Early Spring

Posted on by Melissa Penta

It took a while, but spring is finally here — though it still seems to be fighting with winter. I knew that the nice weekend we had in early March was just a folly, but I did not think that it would be this tough! After some nice weather the birds started to move, only to be stopped by more bad weather. Migration is slow, but the birds are slowly trickling in. Earlier this week, I wrote about my birding trips that involved migrating birds and fallout. Today I want to share some of my local year-round residents and new arrivals.

Sparrows

The Song Sparrows are filling the air with the variety of their tunes!

Song Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Juncos have been hanging around in full force. I get over 20 at a time under my feeders. I am glad they they do not eat from the feeders otherwise they would clean me out! I had multiple incidents where over 30 Juncos would fly from one single area. They are everywhere!

Dark-eyed Juncos

Dark-eyed Juncos

I enjoyed the songs of Fox Sparrows for the first time. They hung around for over two weeks and I had up to six at a time near my creek when they flew right at.

One of many Fox Sparrows who passed through

One of many Fox Sparrows who passed through

Finches

I still have some Pine Siskins hanging around at the feeders with the Goldfinches (who, by the way are starting to look very gold!).

Pine Siskin

Pine Siskin

The lingering Redpolls wish they moved on sooner. I suppose they learned the hard way that staying south did not mean sunshine and warm weather.

Common Redpoll in a rain storm

Common Redpoll in a rain storm

My newest feeder-bird arrival is the Purple Finch. I started with just one for about a week and yesterday I had three pairs.

Purple Finch

Purple Finch

Waterfowl

Every walk at the creek produces at least one Common Merganser. I was able to get pretty close to them at times just by staying still near the edge of the woods.

Male Common Merganser

Male Common Merganser

Female Common Merganser

Female Common Merganser

For the first time, I had Geese across the street from me. I think the creek was too high and rough for them so they wandered a little bit in search for food.

Canada Geese across the street

Canada Geese across the street

Woodpeckers

The Pileated Woodpeckers seem to be a bit less shy then usual when they are looking for insects.

Pileated Woodpecker

Pileated Woodpecker

Since I had no tripod I layed down on the ground across from him and used a stump and my knees to keep the camera steady so that I could shoot this video

I’m pretty sure that I found the nesting cavity for my local Red-bellied Woodpeckers. They are hanging around this tree and especially this cavity an awful lot!

Red-bellied Woodpecker at possible Nest

Red-bellied Woodpecker at possible Nest

Other local birds

The air is also full of the loud songs of my Carolina Wrens.

Singing Carolina Wren

Singing Carolina Wren

Brown Creepers are everywhere.

Brown Creeper

Brown Creeper

And last week marked the return of my favorite flycatcher, the Phoebe.

Eastern Phoebe

Eastern Phoebe

This past weekend I also had a long-awaited yard bird: while standing in my driveway talking to a friend an adult Bald Eagle flew low following along the creek. This happened not ten minutes after my friend and I were talking about having Eagles as yard birds. Talking about being at the right place at the right time!

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