It seems like it has been ages since last I graced you all with my presence and my whereabouts! Never fear, for bird watching will always be on my mind, just a matter of having the time and mula to do so.
At any rate, I usually spend my Saturday mornings to early afternoons with the fine folks and even more intriguing animals and birds over with Wildlife Care at Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary. I have been giving my time, roughly 3 hours at a time, once a week for the past several months since late January of this year. It truly is an honor and a privilege to work with the animals over at WLC, most in particular the birds they tend to there. From the American Crows to the Raven, to the raptors (American Kestrels, Broad-winged Hawks, Red-tailed Hawks, Turkey Vultures) and owls (Great Horned Owls, Barred Owls, Eastern-Screech Owls), to even the Mallards, Pekin Ducks, and our "ambassador" Canada Goose, I just can't get enough of them. It is my hope to continue working with these amazing creatures over at Drumlin for as long as possible, of course depending on what life throws at me in the future.
After my time was done today at Drumlin, I shot over to Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge to finally get some physical exercise, to find some sense of solitude, and to see what birds I could possibly find through all the fierce winds we had whirling about today! As expected, not much in the way of activity was observed, thanks in part to the winds and also the simple fact I was there from 12:15 to 3:30 pm when birds typically are not as active. Our avian friends are more apt to be active in the dawn to mid-morning hours and also during the late-afternoon to dusk hours. The best bird of the day was seeing a Brown Creeper while hiking along Petapawag Trail....just fantastic looks at one of my all-time favorite birds! What I found most amusing was its propensity to follow this one White-breasted Nuthatch around from tree to tree. While the nuthatch probed the tree by walking up and down all sides of the trunk and branches, the creeper would, as is characteristic, walk in a spiral from base to crown until the nuthatch moved on and then would keep following aforementioned nuthatch! Its like the White-breasted Nuthatch was the Brown Creeper's best buddy or older brother! Of further note was seeing good numbers of Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warblers and Dark-eyed (Slate-colored) Juncos. Here is the full list of birds seen....not many, but here they are all the same:
Location: Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge--IBA
Observation date: 10/16/10
Notes: Please also note that weather conditions were as follows: Mostly Sunny, temps in the mid 50s, winds at times in excess of 25 mph.
Number of species: 9
Canada Goose - Branta canadensis 11
Downy Woodpecker - Picoides pubescens 2
Hairy Woodpecker - Picoides villosus 1
Blue Jay - Cyanocitta cristata 5
Black-capped Chickadee - Poecile atricapillus 26
White-breasted Nuthatch - Sitta carolinensis 3
Brown Creeper - Certhia americana 1
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) - Dendroica coronata coronata 18
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) - Junco hyemalis hyemalis/carolinensis 18
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
To finish the day, I joined up with my always dependable good buddy Kirk Marshall and attended a banding demonstration of Northern Saw-whet Owls over at Drumlin Farm from 7 to 9:45 pm. What a freaking treat that was! For one, neither Kirk or myself had ever seen a Saw-whet Owl, and for me, this was my first banding demonstration of any kind! These lovely little owls (they only average 7 to 8 inches in length, from crown to tip of tail) are just so damned cute, especially with those huge saucer eyes that are so very startling yellow in contrast with their black pupils, pale facial disk and rufous-colored, streaky chest! We got to see how the tags were put on and how they recorded the data they obtained from each owl they captured. By the time Kirk and I had left Drumlin, from my best recollection (I was too concerned with the individual owls themselves afterall), we had 7 Saw-whets captured, banded, data-recorded and released back into the wild. I do wish I could count these Saw-whets as a Life bird, but that would be cheating. Yes, they are wild birds, but they were not seen on normal, everyday terms, as in just being out birding and chancing upon one in the wild, unfettered and not tampered with. These wild owls were captured in nets, tagged, measurements taken and finally released. Oh well.....one day Kirk and I will chance upon a Saw-whet in the wild just doing its thing without human interference! I did take a few pictures, but they are on my camera phone and not readily accessible to download to my laptop and thusly, upload to Facebook and this blog. The memory however, shall always remain, etched in my mind!
Truly a superb day it was....now it is time to catch some shut-eye and sleep in! Happy birding to everyone!
