The weather forecast for this morning made general birding, work on my OBBA blocks or monitoring my nest boxes dubious therefore I decided to stay close to home base. I went over to Oxbow Road in The Hoover Nature Preserve as it has two advantages, first it’s only about a mile from home and second it only has 18 nest boxes.



Once there I took two trash bags along with my binoculars, GPS and notebook. The trash was surprisingly light. Are people getting better at picking up or is it just that the fishing isn’t that good right now? The one negative in this category was the American Robin I found tangled in monofilament fishing line. The bird must not have been tangled too long as it was feisty and had not done any real damage to itself trying to get free. The bird being stuck in place by the fishing line, I was able to catch it quickly and free it from what would have been a death trap. This bird survived, but how many do not because of fishing line simply being thrown to the ground? Things improved after I released the robin.



I located Prothonotary Warblers at 3 new natural cavities at Oxbow Road. Added to the pairs in nest boxes and natural cavities I have now located 11 nest sites for them at Oxbow Road. The fact that they are gathering food for hatchlings made it easier to located the nest sites. While at Oxbow I also observed Northern Cardinals, Baltimore Orioles and a pair of Eastern Pewees feeding their fledglings.



Other species maki
ng their appearance included Green Heron, Spotted Sandpiper, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Red-headed Woodpecker, Eastern Phoebe, Eastern Kingbird, White-eyed and Warbling Vireo, many Gray Catbirds, Brown Thrasher, Cedar Waxwings, Yellow warbler, Common Yellowthroat and the cast of usual common suspects.



Just as I headed back to house for lunch the clouds opened and gave a quick downpour. Sometimes timing is everything.



Charlie Bombaci

Hoover Nature Preserve



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