May 2023 – Orange Birding

I was up early both morning this weekend, focused on catching up on some of the songbirds that have moved into our area. I didn’t find nearly as many warblers as I’d hoped, but with some decent yard birding, I added a total of 15 species to my Orange County 2023 list this week. On Saturday morning I birded Cedar Hill Cemetery (just north of Newburgh), and then went to Kendridge Farm. On Sunday I went to Port Jervis and birded Laurel Grove Cemetery and Elks Brox Memorial park.

~Baltimore Oriole at Kendridge Farm, 05/13/23. I’ve seen and heard more BAORs this year than I can ever remember before.

Here’s a list of the birds I added to my OC list this week:

Baltimore Oriole, 05/08/23, my yard
Great Crested Flycatcher, 05/09/23, my yard
Ruby-throated Hummingbird, 05/12/23, my yard
Red-eyed Vireo, 05/13/23, Cedar Hill Cemetery
Eastern Wood-Pewee, 05/13/23, Cedar Hill Cemetery
Magnolia Warbler, 05/13/23, Kendridge Farm
Blue-winged Warbler, 05/13/23, Kendridge Farm
Green Heron, 05/13/23, Kendridge Farm
Common Nighthawk, 05/13/23, my yard
Pine Warbler, 05/14/23, Laurel Grove Cemetery
Scarlett Tanager, 05/14/23, Elks Brox Park
Prairie Warbler, 05/14/23, Elks Brox Park
Blackpoll Warbler, 05/14/23, Elks Brox Park
Northern Parula, 05/14/23, Elks Brox Park
Common Gallinule, 05/14/23, Liberty Loop

~Northern Mockingbird at Cedar Hill Cemetery, 05/13/23.~

Tricia and I are heading to Ireland for vacation at the end of this coming week, so unless something really interesting happens this week, this will be my last post for a couple of weeks. I look forward to sharing my experiences in Ireland when I get back; this time I am planning to get back to the Cliffs of Moher, so that will be exciting.

~A Red-tailed Hawk peers down from one of the buildings at Kendridge Farm, 05/13/23.~

~I had to include at least one warbler photo, even if it’s not a great shot. Blue-winged Warbler at Kendridge Farm, 05/13/23.~

~Female Red-winged Blackbird in the black dirt, 05/13/23.~

It’s the time of year when A LOT is happening. Birds are on the move and seemingly everywhere. While I think most birders were out looking for wood warblers, I kind of did my own thing since warblers are not high priority for me. That said, I added 27 species to my Orange County year list in the past couple of days. I added over half of those birds on a 7.5 mile hike at Black Rock Forest on Saturday morning. It was a birdy hike with 44 species observed.

~Killdeer chick in the Black Dirt Region, 05/07/23.~

Saturday afternoon I went over to Walkill River National Wildlife Refuge’s Winding Waters Trail. Birding bud Kyle Knapp let me know that he’d had shorebirds there in the flooded fields. I was able to relocate the Dunlin that he’d had there earlier, as well as: Killdeer (2), Least Sandpipers (9), Greater Yellowlegs (many), Lesser Yellowlegs (even more), and Solitary Sandpipers (15+). The birds were distant, and the heat shimmer was terrible, which made for poor viewing.

~Lesser Yellowlegs at Winding Waters Trail, 05/07/23.~

I went back to Winding Waters this morning to follow up on the Black-bellied Plover that Jeanne Cimorelli located after I’d left on Saturday. As luck would have it, I was joined by fellow hawk watcher and all around good guy, Tom Millard. We scanned the shorebirds from many locations on the trail and totaled 9 species of shorebirds (we added Black-bellied Plover, Semipalmated Plover and Spotted Sandpiper to the birds listed above). The number of shorebirds at that location right now is really something – it’s hard to put a number on it, but I’m guesstimating over 200 shorebirds present.

Month: May 2023

Sunday Shots, 05/14/23

Sunday Shots, Shorebirds and Babies, 05/07/23