Back in the Saddle

Until this last week, I haven’t birded much recently. It’s been hard to get out since there’s a baby girl at home who likes to spend time with her daddy. And who can say no to that? But if I’m honest with myself, it’s also been tough to find motivation to get out. Summer is hot (and unbearably muggy here in the South) and there aren’t that many birds out.

Thank goodness for fall and migration! The chance of seeing different birds is a good motivation. But since I still have the time constraints to deal with, I mostly bird close to home. So I’m really fortunate that our neighborhood has its own nature preserve.

Gray-cheeked Thrush at my neighborhood preserve

It’s very nice, yes, but it’s definitely not what you would call a birding hotspot. It’s small, about 10 acres, but with fairly nice habitat. I’ve birded it five times in the last week, for about an hour each morning, and have only averaged 25 species a day. So the diversity isn’t all that great on any given visit. But, on the bright side, there’s usually something new every day. One day it’s a Yellow-breasted Chat, the next a Worm-eating Warbler.

A single morning at a true migration hotspot would probably yield more species than I get here all season. But still, it’s great to have a place so close by where I can loose myself amongst the birds for an hour or so. And, if nothing else, it appears that my birding slump is over.

Northern Waterthrushes are very common here in migration