Showing posts with label spring birds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring birds. Show all posts

Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Bird songs and spring migrants

All of our "regular" garden and backyard residents (at least the males) are singing up a storm, establishing territories for their nesting sites and to attract mates.  Northern Cardinals and Northern Mockingbirds are some of the most frequent songs that I'm hearing now - along with Carolina Chickadees and Carolina Wrens. They're favorite familiar birds in our Carolina gardens and natural areas -- learning their calls is just like recognizing the voices of your friends is what I tell students on field trips (visiting the Garden where I work)!

I haven't had time to get out on birding excursions so far this year, but reports from our local birding group are reporting all sorts of good sightings.

And this report on Weather and Songbird Migration, at Journey North, my favorite real-time observation/citizen science site, predicts an exciting couple of weeks ahead for seeing the return of many of our spring migrants, either as they're passing through, or staying through the warm season here.

Thursday, 14 March 2013

Spring birds are singing...

Northern Cardinals, Carolina Wrens, and American Robins have been the primary voices that I've heard this week (they've had to push themselves into my consciousness as I've been enveloped in writing and layout on our spring newsletter -- uh, work stuff).  Hhrmph! 

Hopefully, I'll have more time next week during spring break to listen more carefully.

I did see one of our (that is, the SC Botanical Garden's) red-shouldered hawk pairs early in the week -- it looked like the male was transferring something to eat to the female (maybe for nestlings?)  Possibly it was for her, but I do think they'd have nestlings by now in mid-March.

I'm looking forward to seeing if any of my early cool-season vegetable seed sowings in the mountains have done much this weekend. It's been cool, and rainy, so reasonable weather, but the temperatures have also been quite cold.