1 February - 7 February 2022

Dear fellow flock of birders,

So what’s up in the bird world of the Arboretum or around the periphery of the Arboretum?

There have been a few reports of Northern Cardinals singing. I heard one singing last week when I went out to get the newspaper off the driveway in the early morning about a week ago. But this past Sunday, on another nice sunny day with temps in the 30s I birded five different places and four of the five had Northern Cardinals belting out their songs. I felt like singing myself but I whistled the cardinal song instead. All winter the cardinals have been quiet but beginning in February cardinals begin to sing. It’s a sign that spring is just around the corner. My question is; how big is that corner? What it really means is that cardinals are initiating their pair bonding and secondly they are establishing their territories. By the way I mostly see male Northern Cardinals singing but female cardinals sing too but not as often. So for my first photo I’ve included a photo of a singing Northern Cardinal perched at the top of a tree.

The other bird activity I saw was woodpeckers chasing each other in pairs. They also would perch close to each other and move their heads either up or move from side to side. I’m not sure what that means but it is a display that I often see in the spring. Two males or two females might be telling each other that “I’m better than you are.” If the display is between a male and a female it might mean “Would you like to pair with me?” (or words to that effect). Anyway on Sunday I saw both Downy Woodpecker pairs and Hairy Woodpecker pairs performing these rituals. My next two photos show a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers with heads held high and a single Downy Woodpecker just surviving a snowfall. 

Today I went birding at Spring Trail Pond. The usual birds were there. Of course there are many Mallards on the pond either swimming or around the periphery sleeping. It was colder today than on Sunday and I did not hear any cardinals singing but I did see a few males and females. Of course there were House Sparrows. There are always American Crows flying over making lots of noise. Two Blue Jays were calling back and forth mimicking the cry of the Red-tailed Hawk. That sound used to fool me but now I have to see the bird before I determine what species it is. More often than not it is a Blue Jay. I also saw Wild Turkeys, Black-capped Chickadees, Dark-eyed Juncos, White-breasted Nuthatches and Mourning Doves. The species of the day was the Northern Flicker and there was a pair of them. They usually fly farther south in the winter but a few stay and have been seen at the Spring Trail Pond by many other birders. Today was my first sighting of them for the year. They were in the three snags down the path to the south. They were checking out some of the holes in the snags probably looking for food cached by other woodpeckers. After watching and photographing them for a few minutes a Red-bellied Woodpecker flew in and chased one of the flickers away. I took photos of the Red-bellied Woodpecker and even got a photo of the Red-bellied Woodpecker and Northern Flicker together only a few inches apart. Included are two photos. One is a photo of the two together. The other photo is just the Northern Flicker by itself.

Last Tuesday on our bird walk we walked the length of the Longenecker Gardens from west to east. Practically everyone saw a Sharp-shinned Hawk fly through the Pinetum (where all the pine trees are). I think I’m the only one who missed it. I still have not seen one for this year. Rosemary Jones actually photographed it in flight and captured a wonderful action photo of the hawk. Thank you Rosemary for letting me include your photo in this report. It is included.

A few days ago I birded the south end of Gardner Marsh which is part of the Arboretum and Harvey Schmidt Park which is along Carver St. and not part of the Arboretum. I consider the elongated waterway extending from a rectangular pond at the east end to a circular pond on the west end as part of Gardner Marsh. Between the two ponds is a narrow channel of water with a hidden spring that keeps the water in the middle of the channel from freezing. In that water are primarily Mallards and Gadwalls. I was able to take some close photos of two male Mallards and even a closer photo of one male Gadwall. I’m always amazed at the detail in the feathers of ducks especially when the photos are close to the bird. What do you think? Included are the two photos of the two Mallards and a Gadwall.

My last photo is of two American Robins in the same water that the ducks above are in. One is on top of a small log and the other is on the underside of the log. Not seen is the two kissing each other behind the log. This takes a bit of imagination but it’s possible. Okay maybe it’s not that. It could be two robins taking a drink of water from both sides of the log. Okay, okay, it’s one robin bending down to take a drink of water and a reflection of that robin in the water. That’s no fun. Come on folks, use your imagination.

That’s the Arboretum bird report for the past week.

I wish all of you good health and good birding in 2022,

Chuck