Rough legged Hawk and Ebird Occurrence Maps v2

 

It's funny. I went to Holiday Beach almost every Friday after work during the 2010 fall raptor migration and saw pretty well every migrating raptor with the exception of the Rough Legged Hawk. Then, during the Christmas Bird Count at PPNP, I saw one fly by in the distance and finally lifered the bird at #215. The next day, I see a Dark Morph RLH along sanctuary pond... and today I finally get awesome views at PPNP on the North Dyke road. The onion fields also had several Northern Harriers flying around. I watched one fly about 1m above a ditch at a slow pace. It was probably scanning for rodents.

Small flocks of birds along the North Dyke road included:
BH Cowbirds,
E Starlings,
House and Tree Sparrows.
American Goldfinches
Blackbirds were around as well.

Sadly, I did not see any owls that were recently reported in the area.



Red Breasted Nuthatch Update

The Red Breasted Nuthatch is such cool bird, I can't help but stop by my parents house on a weekly basis and check out if it's there.

Red and White Breasted Nuthatches around on Jan 5th but I did not see the red-breasted this morning

This morning, I stopped by my parent's house because I  wanted to take some better photos of the Red Breasted Nuthatch. But... I did not see him! (*edit: I saw him again but later in the afternoon around 4pm) I heard Nuthatches several times but it/they did not come into view (*until later).  I did however hear the telltale call notes of a Carolina Wren!!!! Breeet-Breeet-Breet..... Wow... I was shocked! I snapped a few photos from 30m away and came up with the ones below.

By the way... what an incredible morning! The sun has hardly been out on a weekend for at least a month!

Shuster Trail? Nope. Mom's House...Click to view full size!

Later, I saw him again drinking water from an icicle hanging from the side of my parents shed! Again, this is from about 30 meters away. Now that's brisk baby!

*This is a follow-up to this posting. I did see the Red breasted Nuthatch in the later part of the afternoon. I seem to see it around 4pm with the most consistency.

Of course, an out-of-focus clothes line runs through this photo.

Also Seen:
Crows
Blue Jays
Cooper's Hawk

I'm blown away!!!! I basically only see this bird (the Carolina Wren) at Point Pelee, Holiday Beach or Ojibway but in Residential South Windsor? I'm pretty convinced the Red Breasted Nuthatch is overwintering near my parent's home. How awesome!


Ebird Occurrence Maps

This is the occurrence map for the Red headed Woodpecker

Using Ebird.org data from birders all over the US, Cornell University made these dynamic maps that show how various birds move from county to county during the various months. You can see how there is an explosive movement of Red headed Woodpeckers towards Ohio as May approaches. Very cool! They have such maps for about 15 other birds as well. Check out this link for occurrence maps for more birds and information.

(right click, open in new tab)
http://ebird.org/content/ebird/about/occurrence-maps/red-headed-woodpecker

Good birding,
Dwayne