Suburban Bird Blind

In February, we moved from a small-windowed studio on a busy street in Northampton to an apartment in Easthampton. The new place is on a quiet residential street that ends less than a block away from a small boat ramp on Nashawannuck Pond, and our apartment has a backyard with red and Norway maples, a hemlock, and some rose-family fruit trees. And, maybe best of all, we have nice big windows facing east (in the kitchen) and west (in the living room).

I knew when we moved in that this would be a better place to observe birds than the last place I lived. On a hunch, I started a backyard bird log in a pocket notebook clipped to our refrigerator door.

Birding here has turned out even better than I expected! Working from home during the pandemic has let me take most of my breaks at the window, watching for birds. Even without a bird feeder (we keep meaning to put it up!), we’ve seen an amazing progression of birds throughout the spring, with hardly any effort at all. Some of my favorites have been the Dark-Eyed Juncos in February, which have mostly moved on now; Hairy Woodpeckers; Song Sparrows in March, White-Throated Sparrows in April, and now Chipping Sparrows in early May; a solitary Ruby-Crowned Kinglet that showed up in mid-April and keeps coming back to visit; Red-Bellied Woodpeckers and even a Pileated Woodpecker that meandered through the neighbors’ trees; and a Northern Flicker just yesterday.

Best of all are the warblers. I had never spotted a warbler by myself before moving here, and certainly had never been able to keep one in my sights. The first bird to change that was a Yellow Palm Warbler on April 12, who hopped around our Norway maple for several minutes, bobbing its tail, before flying off. A week later, it came back with friends.

On April 29, my day started auspiciously when I spotted a Yellow-Rumped Warbler across the street while blearily sipping coffee on the couch. We kept looking, and realized there were at least a dozen of them in a single tree, hopping about almost like popcorn in a pan.

A few days later, we saw several individuals of both species all in our backyard maples at once. Now we’ve spotted a Black-and-White Warbler in some woods nearby, so I’m hoping they may visit our yard. I’m also very curious to see if next year, each species starts to visit us around the same time, and in the same order, or if I can observe factors such as warmth and weather that might affect when they appear.

Publicado el mayo 6, 2020 06:59 TARDE por loganfoxtrot