Tammy and I have always enjoyed recognizing and observing wild birds,
but I think our willingness to pay more attention to them went way up
with the event of the pandemic in combination with the board game called
Wingspan. Now we've added the Merlin app to our phones, which has been a useful tool to help us do some "ear training" as we work on identifying bird calls and songs.
Confirmed Sightings on the Farm
We've got a nice list of birds that we can say we have positively identified and seen on the farm since we arrived here in 2004. Our most recent additions, as odd as it might seem, are the Great Crested Flycatcher and Chimney Swifts. With the former, we saw them first at Sweet's Marsh and just figured that we didn't have quite enough habitat at our farm to interest them. In the case of the swifts, it is possible they've been around before, but it seems to me that their active periods are often when neither of us has the energy to really watch the skies for them.
Some of the additions to the list this year has to do with our own learning and some of it has to do with more tools and more dedication to paying attention. And, I think, some of it has to do with the improved habitat for birds on our farm over the years. We'll call that a good thing.
Some of the birds migrate through and we see them at the farm only during the period of time that they pass through. Others spend a significant amount of time here each season. Very few are like the Northern Cardinal, keeping us company every season of the year.
Here we go! Our list of confirmed bird sightings at the Genuine Faux Farm:
House Wren, House Sparrow, Brown Thrasher, Red-Winged Blackbird, Common Yellowthroat, American Robin, Barn Swallow, Song Sparrow, Northern Cardinal, American Crow, Gray Catbird (Meow), Chipping Sparrow, Goldfinch, Indigo Bunting, Dickcissel, Brown-headed Cowbird, Cedar Waxwing, Starling, Common Grackle, Eastern Kingbird, Ring-necked Pheasant, Grasshopper Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, Killdeer, Northern Mockingbird, Warbling Vireo, Great Crested Flycatcher, Chimney Swift, Eastern Bluebird, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Red-headed Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Flicker, Mourning Dove, Eurasion Collared Dove, Nuthatch, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Chickadee, Dark-eyed Junco, Cooper's Hawk, Bald Eagle, Vulture, Red-tailed Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk, Kestral, Blue Jay, Baltimore Oriole, Orchard Oriole, Wild Turkey, Broad-winged Hawk, Long-eared Owl, Great Horned Owl, House Finch - and maybe some others. When you make a list this long you begin to wonder if you're repeating yourself. So, I'll stop there.
Other birds that we are pretty sure are around, but we have not laid eyes on:
Blue-grey Gnatcatcher, Yellow Warbler, Tufted Titmouse,
And birds that we have witnessed flying over the farm, but we can't really say they've landed on the farm proper:
Sandhill Crane, Great Blue Heron, Nighthawk, Canada Goose, Horned Lark, Snow Bunting, American White Pelican, Tundra Swan, Trumpeter Swan, and probably many others I can't remember at the moment.
The diversity in our avian friends that have visited the Genuine Faux Farm makes us both happy. Imagine what things might be like if our society could place more value on this sort of thing.
Welcome to July - and have a great day.
We can now add a few more birds to our list. We recently had sightings of an Eastern Wood Pewee (and we heard it calling). A Lark Sparrow was singing happily out in the northeast corner of the farm while farmer Rob was putting the broiler chickens away one evening. And, while it is not a new sighting for species, we both got to see a baby Baltimore Oriole being a clutz while its parents taught it how to forage in the Red twig Dogwoods by the house.
ReplyDelete