Todays half hour.

Only had a little time today. WEVI was telling the chick to pick up the beer check, this morning. A RTHU buzzed the feeders. Back home at sunset to the song of newly arrived GRCAs I had a few flyover CHSW. Wish I had some more time but its early to rise tomorrow for a birdwalk I'm leading at the park, the WOTH were singing away this evening there.

not a cougar, but a...

PUMA (129/78). Just a friendly reminder: say goodbye to the leads Sean and Skye.

Serving up CERW!

Ok, Caleb, you may have beaten me to the chase on NAWA, but now you can EAT THIS! (oh, and the rest of you all can too...) - CERULEAN WARBLER (54/109). A male singing in the top of one huge red oak. Below is the best photo I could manage...it did not get much closer and all views were pretty much from below.
Other new birds today include Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (52) and Rose-breasted Grosbeak (53).

First official mic-assisted lifer

Yo beoches- at 11:12PM last night, as I sat on my back porch listening to the sky, I had an odd, reedy, upslurred note pass directly over my head and the mic, which was recording. I knew instantly my yard total had increased by one, I just didn't know by which one. It struck me as a shorebird or rail, definitely a sound I would envision hearing from the marsh. Here are the sonograms:
Listen to this track here(Use Internet Explorer if Mozilla Firefox gives you trouble.)and this one here.

A bit of further analysis, esp. this near exact match, has done the job for me: SORA. Eat it Kapmandu with all your cattail marsh! On the southside, we like to score our marshbirds the hard way: in Black Oak forest. On another note: with this bird I have tied Sean in the year list, and Skye in the life yard competition. Get ready to be passed, boyz. Also, I am not done going through last night's recording, and there were at least 3-4 seeps which I heard and have not yet analyzed, so it could happen today.

PS- just found an obvious SOSA from 2:24AM, at which point I was in bed, sadly.and this GRYE 15 minutes later:
Also, many SAVS (still a yard lifer- just a matter of time) and many unIDed seeps as well- at least one probably FISP.

The past few days

Been busy lately, Ruff chasing, working, more Ruff chasing (and finally success, Life Bird!!). Anyways, I've added a few birds to the old list over the past few days. BWHA, YWAR, NAWA, WAVI. There you go. Hopefully I get some more warbler action soon in the yard. I'll be out there tomorrow. Watch out.

Five for the day

As mentioned earlier, several RBGR, a single BGGN & an individual NAWA showed up this morning. This evening on the strong southerlies CHSW & BANS arrived. Looking forward to more newbies over the next few days!

And again

Wow- after listening but hearing nothing last night, tonight's radar is even better
Indeed, Slave Dagger just called from La Crosse WI and said he just heard the following (all well after dark migrating overhead) from his trailer: VIRA (1), SOSA (2), and WPWI (1)!! But he also said it's overcast with a low ceiling and storms brewing on the horizon. Here in Grand Rapids, the stars are beautifully visible, likely causing the average flight height to increase to a level outside of hearing range. So, I'll continue to tweak this thing until the nocturnal listening yields me yardbirds. For the record, I just missed SAVS last night by about 2 minutes, after I had just come off the roof (picked up diagnostically by the mic). Get out and listen, chumps.

Wastelands Scores First Ever 'Dendroica'

A flyover Yellow-rumped was year bird #44 (yard lifer #51).

Yesterday, I managed a distant singing WTSP (#43/yard lifer #50).

This Warbler War could get dirty!

Ok, so I get up this a.m. (late due to being up late last night working on installing my new bathroom linoleum flooring). I was extatic to hear and see an early male Nashville Warbler (50)! I thought to myself - "that's a 3 pointer for sure...can't believe I'm going to beat all the southerners with this bird!" THEN, I get on the blog and let out a brief cry of astonishment when I saw that CALEB (of all people) beat me to the chase by only a couple hours! Ok, Putter, I let you get this FOY warbler only cause you ain't gonna get anutter!
One other addition for the year list was Chimney Swift (51).

Aerial migrants

Finally managed some migrants today: despite having seen my first one of 2010 weeks ago, and the species being back in numbers for over a week now, I only managed to log Barn Swallow (of the nominate race, naturally) today, when I heard one from my bedroom. Then, literally as I was writing this, I heard a Common Swift.

OK 1 new species today

Guess who's tied for the warbler war lead? Yours truly (NAWA, singing male). Seems a bit early for my neck of the woods.

It's on, baby!

Check it out boyz: the doldroms of the last week are about to end (just after dusk Aprl 28):You can count on a few new yearbirds for Putzville tonight, and here's hoping for several life yardbirds. My predictions: SAVS, SWSP, and going out on a limb- GRYE and VIRA. Get outside and turn on those mics!

Postscript: here is what things looked like at dawn April 29: clearly a bunch of the birds made it to our latitudes (note how La Crosse WI was blank at dusk, heavy at dawn, etc.). Somewhat shockingly, despite spending 1.5 hours on the roof last night between 10 and 11:30 I heard not a single seep! I guess they must have been up too high (?!). It will be interesting to see what the mic picked up as well. Finally, in my early AM site survey today I had no new species. It is tough to fully grasp what is going on here... Not that this is the place for me to ask given how little you all know about birds!