Hiya tweets,

Was out early at UBNA on Saturday morning, doing a little survey work for a project. For the most part I was just peripherally aware of what birds were singing, chirping, and squawking around me. When I finished the survey work I got down to some serious birding just to see who was out. Haven't been out recently, so figured there must be some early spring migrants. Kind of funny though. I only came up with 3 new species for the year out there, and was surprised to find I had 51 species total at the end of the day. The only new birds were the Tree Swallows and very ubandant Violet-green Swallows which have returned, plus a pair of Wilson's Warblers in a shrub on my way out.

I did catch a male Eurasian Wigeon on the Central Pond, as well as a male Northern Pintail there. Found a late Fox Sparrow over by the CUH east parking lot. Heard and saw a number of Pine Siskins in with the goldfinches. Lucked in to a group of 4 Band-tailed Pigeons flying over at one point, heading it appeared, towards the Arboretum. Most fun sighting of the day though was actually a pair of Black-capped Chickadees. Again over by the CUH parking lot, I heard a soft pecking and stopped to see who it was, figuring a Downy Woodpecker (which I had already found earlier elsewhere at UBNA), but was surprised to see that it was a BCCH pecking at the tall snag. Had a pretty good little hole going to, could fit its entire head and shoulders in. Very cool to see one of these little excavators at work for once house building instead of just feeding or singing.

Brett A. Wolfe
Seattle, WA
m_lincolnii at yahoo.com




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