Today was one of those days you want to start over and change the script. It began with an emergency visit at the vet’s with our cat. He’s 17 years young and like everyone else we are attached to our smallest family member. We rescued him back in 1993 when his old owner moved and simply abandoned him. Being a birder I immediately converted him to an indoor cat. He can bird watch through the window but the only bird he gets to is chicken as a treat. Giving a cat medicine is somewhat like juggling while walking on water, you generally know who will win before the battle begins.



The cat act caused me not to get out to monitor my Prothonotary Warblers until after lunch . With the water level going down significantly around the north end of Hoover Reservoir I was able to get to the backwater sections for the first time this season. I worked the recesses of Area N and along Big Walnut Creek and despite it being the afternoon the place was extremely active. The species observed is below for those who aren’t interested in a cross between Edgar Alan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock. My travels took me through mud, low water, over fallen trees and waist high nettle. I didn’t mind as I had activity everywhere until as I was going around a tree I stepped on a slippery exposed root and did something resembling a triple axel, greeted a tree trunk face first, caromed off it and came down on a smaller fallen tree. Of course it was of the hardwood variety. Tomorro
w I’ll see if my eye doctor can salvage the pair of glasses I had on. My ego won’t do quite as well. My wife marveled at the tree identification pattern that runs from my forehead to my shin. My color by tomorrow will be attractive to Purple Finches. I think this rates as my top slip and fly maneuver in the 23 years I have been walking and wading here while working with the nest box trail. The cat had no compassion as he remembered getting his medicine.



The good part now that I’ve covered the bad and the ugly. In the area I monitored this afternoon I observed 39 Prothonotary Warblers ( 31 males, 3 females and 5 fledglings). The other top finds included 6 Red-headed Woodpeckers, 6 Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Louisiana Waterthrush feeding fledglings, Yellow-throated , Northern Parula and Cerulean Warblers carrying food , the resident pair of Brown Creepers, and Green Heron constructing a nest.



Birds observed include:

Double-crested Cormorant

Great Blue Heron

Green Heron

Turkey Vulture

Canada Goose

Wood Duck

Mallard

Osprey

Red-tailed Hawk

Killdeer

Spotted Sandpiper

Mourning Dove

Yellow-billed Cuckoo

Great Horned Owl

Ruby-throated Hummingbird

Belted Kingfisher

Red-headed Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker

Hairy Woodpecker

Northern Flicker

Pileated Woodpecker

Eastern Wood-Pewee

Acadian Flycatcher

Eastern Phoebe

Great Crested Flycatcher

Eastern Kingbird

Warbling Vireo

Red-eyed Vireo

Blue Jay

American Crow

Tree Swallow

Caroli
na Chickadee

Tufted Titmouse

White-breasted Nuthatch

Brown Creeper

House Wren

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Wood Thrush

American Robin

Gray Catbird

European Starling

Cedar Waxwing

Northern Parula

Yellow Warbler

Yellow-throated Warbler

Cerulean Warbler

Prothonotary Warbler

Louisiana Waterthrush

Song Sparrow

Northern Cardinal

Indigo Bunting

Red-winged Blackbird

Common Grackle

Brown-headed Cowbird

Baltimore Oriole

American Goldfinch



Charlie Bombaci

Hoover Nature Preserve

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