Memorial Day Weekend has arrived, and I look around at the bevy of people around me thinking, “if you only knew, this whole landscape was BROWN a month ago. We didn’t even have LEAVES 2 weeks ago!”

Nothing has really changed between Thursday (pre-weekend) and Friday (officially the weekend) — the weather is still sort of crummy (50′s and cloudy more often than not) and there is no magic “feeling” of anything, marking the significance of one day to the next.

Sea of Blue Forget-Me-Nots

But what has changed is the magical flourishing of green upon the landscape; everything has literally just sprung to life. It is truly boggling, and amazing, and beautiful. And with it has come a full-court press of Little Birds. What has felt like a slooooooooowwwwwww process this spring (I never did see any teals, wigeons, shovelers, etc.?) has finally truly picked up steam. :)

Perfect still evening on the Bay

I took my sandwich and salad from the Northern Grill down to Peninsula State Park, and picked Weborg Point as the most likely place to have some wildlife/bird activity. It was perfect! Seriously, if I could enjoy a simple sandwich at Weborg Point every day for the rest of my life, my life would be utterly complete. It is impossible to improve upon perfection!

View of the Strawberry Channel from my picnic table

A few flittery warblers caught my eye over where another couple was eating. The birds were a few feet too close for my 10×50′s, but were too far to make out with the naked eye. So I obligingly ate while admiring the gorgeous view across the bay and Strawberry Channel.

But then, a couple of bites into my burger, I saw several gazillion warblers in the trees over my head and behind me! Gack! I unceremoniously shoved a couple more bites in my mouth, snapped the lid shut (warbler poop on my sandwich did not appeal, no matter how pretty the birds are) and grabbed my binocs. And watched the show. Read the rest of this entry

If you’d seen me pulling in to Fish Creek on Cty F yesterday, you’d probably have thought I’d lost my marbles. I didn’t look happy. I was ecstatic. Like, bouncing-in-my-seat, cheering and clapping and screaming, kind of ecstatic. A level of enthusiasm that is considered not P.C. in most circles.  Luckily the car windows were closed. :)

See, as I rounded the corner, and looked up at the top of the Cellcom tower, there was an osprey. The female osprey, very very likely the same bird who’s been nesting up there with her mate for the last 3 years now. (I am guessing it’s the female, given the brown ‘necklace’ of feathers around the upper chest; this is more common with the females, whereas males typically have all-white chests.) The same ospreys usually return to the same nesting spot every year.

She was perched on the same spire, sitting in the same direction as always (looking north), surveying her Kingdom, as if she owns it all, and all of the clutter and we people buzzing about below are just incidental. :)

The reason I was so incredibly happy to see her was because I was worried they’d been shot to death in Central or South America, where our ospreys overwinter. Ospreys will sometimes find a fish farm and set up residence there. To them, it’s just a good food supply. Of course, to the fish farmer, it’s lost profits. So the farmers take to their shotguns and kill the ospreys hunting their ponds.

Every spring I check the local nests, almost obsessively, worried that “our” ospreys unknowingly made a poor choice over winter and were shot and killed.

This is especially a problem in the Dominican Republic, which is a deadly place especially for first-year migrant juveniles who decide end their first migration in the D.R. and take up winter residence, not realizing what a dangerous place it is. The juvies who continue south to South America are often (but not always) headed to safer grounds, at least in terms of the risk of being shot. (Read Meadow’s story)

I sat in the parking lot at the Top of the Hill shops, which is right next door to the tower, and watched her in the binoculars. Holy cow, their talons are huge, their hulking bodies and wide shoulders so imposing! They are an absolutely amazing and beautiful creation.

I hope some of the classes at Gibraltar Schools are studying the ospreys. It is an absolutely golden learning opportunity to have this nest right across the street from the school! And the birds don’t mind if there are kids out on the playground… the kids can walk right out on the school grounds and watch them with the naked eye.

We were thrilled in college to have a pair of nesting ospreys 2 miles away from our summer camp lodge, that we could watch and journal through a telescope…… sheesh. What we would have given to be able to study ospreys like this!!! :)

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I awoke yesterday to a persistent, endless cacophony of bird song that I didn’t recognize. It was noisy, unique, and there were lots of birds singing the same song. And I hadn’t heard it before.

I peeked out my 2nd-floor bedroom window and saw a few little brown birds with black-and-white striped heads hopping around on the trees and in the grass. I thought they were white-throated sparrows (which are very common around here), but in the back of my mind it seemed rather odd that they were so noisy. I didn’t remember the white-throats being that ……. obnoxious?

Later in the day I Googled the white-throated sparrows, and realized that I didn’t recall seeing any yellow on these little birds’ heads. Hmmmm. I listened to the white-throats’ calls online, and they did not match. Not even remotely. And yet Cornell didn’t list any similar-looking species; to hear them tell it, the white-throated sparrow was the only sparrow with that obvious black-and-white striping on it.

Now I was obsessed. :) What were those birds???? I grabbed my camera and went outside. I tried to creep gently, quietly, unobtrusively to the side yard… no matter, all the birds spooked and flew off, sort of in a brown wave. *grin* Except for one brave little soul in a tree. I took his picture.

There were several more in a tree below my porch, so I took their pictures, too. After a few minutes, another puffy little fellow hopped out of a bush and onto the grass. He was particularly photogenic. I snapped his pic and he flitted away.

Good pics in hand, I ran back upstairs and cracked open my trusty, worn copy of Peterson’s. I downloaded the pictures, although I didn’t really need to, I had gotten a really good look at the little guys out there. A-ha! There they were, no question: white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys).

They hadn’t been here the day before. They were here all day Wednesday. Literally, they were yammering from sun-up to sun-down. And when I awoke this morning, they were gone.

This morning my Mom wrote to tell me that all 3,000 of the white-crowneds were at her house today (11 miles north of me, as the crow flies) … and that yes, their song was definitely different than the white-throated sparrows. See? I asked … now you know why I was obsessed with them yesterday!!

Nothing like a new bird on a bright spring day. :)

Was treated to a small, active, talkative flock of Bonaparte’s Gulls in Sturgeon Bay, just off the shores of Potawatomi State Park.