I was beginning to fear a no fly zone here!  No warblers at all until a
yellow warbler yesterday (May 1).  The house wrens came back yesterday,
too.  Maybe things will pick up!  I live next door to the Kent campus
where I teach, so I observe the birds in my yard and the school woods
and fields.  We used to get lots of Bobolinks and Eastern Meadowlarks,
but now a junior soccer league has created soccer fields of my best
birding areas.  Not even the pheasants are back this year.

 

We've had a red-breasted grosbeak couple at the bird feeder for the past
few days, but yesterday only two males came.  Could be a nest somewhere
nearby.

 

A purple finch couple have been visiting the oil seed feeder, as have
the goldfinches and house finches.

 

The white crowned sparrows are still coming to the feeder as are the
white throats, song, and chipping sparrows along with too many house
sparrows.  A friend insists that she gets white crowned sparrows nesting
in her yard, so I have her ready with her camera to document
nest-building this year.

 

Tree swallows are back, and one is investigating one of my nesting
boxes.  We usually have a pair in a wood duck house on the campus pond.

 

A pair of wood ducks were at the pond this morning, but in the 26 years
I've walked here, they've never used the wood duck houses.  I saw one
pileated woodpecker, three red bellies, and a pair of downies, multiple
white breasted nuthatches in the woods.  The wood thrush was singing
boldly for the first time today.  

 

No kingbirds yet, but the catbirds are nesting in their usual places,
and the phoebes are nesting in one of my buildings.  The neighbors' cat
is very interested.

 

Jay Wootten

Salem, OH


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