Sunday, May 17, 2015

This week in urban birds

South Wilkes-Barre is buzzing with breeding birds and a few good migrants.

This week had the first Common Nighthawk pass through. Hopefully, they'll take to the green roof on top of the Cohen Science Center. Speaking of, the CSC had no window-killed birds for the past few weeks. Very surprising. 

Common Grackles, Starlings, and American Robins are flying through the neighborhood with mouthfuls of food for chicks. The Tree Swallow at the house laid her first egg yesterday afternoon and continue to copulate throughout the day. She only took a few days to build the nest out of materials she found in the yard and street. 




Song Sparrows are also acting like they're feeding chicks but I have yet to find a nest. A female Brown-headed Cowbird was searching our privet hedge and the neighbor's hedge for nests. We planted ornamental Allium (onion) and that had a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird - not seen since that one. 

As for migrants, I can hear Blackpoll Warblers everywhere. I've also been hearing American Redstarts. I'm down to one dog and he's old so my walks are much shorter. Despite that our walks along the tracks (wooded strip about 50 m wide between two developments) picked up Least Flycatcher, Baltimore Oriole, Scarlet Tanager, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Northern Parula, Red-eyed Vireo, Chimney Swift, and Bay-breasted Warbler - one of my favorite migrants
Crappy shot of a very cool Bay-breasted Warbler

The Peregrine Falcon is still patrolling near Market Street and the Tree Swallows around the Susquehanna have been joined by Rough-winged Swallows




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