After Friday night’s Arctic Tern excitement, the weekend of birding felt a little hum-drum for me – looking for small birds in the treetops doesn’t always do it for me. But, since I was away last weekend, and I didn’t get out much this week, I was well behind my normal pace. I started the weekend with my lowest number of species in Orange County (at this date), in over 5 years. Because of that, many of the birds I heard and saw over the past couple of days were new birds for the year. I added a good number of new species over the weekend – 35 to be exact. Exciting birds for me included Blackburnian Warble, Worm-eating Warbler, Swainson’s Thrush, and Semipalmated Plover. I’ve included a list of all my new birds at the bottom of this post.
Yard Birds 2022: (47) – I added 4 species since I last reported: Chimney Swift, European Starling, Northern Parula, and Great Crested Flycatcher.
Nice tally! That’s a good weekend:) I was able to see my first cerulean warbler on Saturday at doodletown- so that was exciting!! The Merlin app with sound id helped tremendously- I can’t believe how good it worked!! I realize I’m probably late to the game on that app, but better late than never…I have a question for you on the “yard birds” as I’ve been keeping track now too…can I count a bird if I can definitively identify it by sound? Or do I have to also see it? What is your criteria?
Thanks Matt!
Tom
Congrats on the Cerulean, that’s always a good bird to get. I haven’t started using Merlin yet; I have it on my phone but I haven’t used it yet. And yes, count it if you identify it by sound. Others have asked if flyovers count – for sure, I get many of my yard birds with flyovers. Thanks for checking in. Matt