2014-07-03

CUC Bird Walk Report: Sun Jun 15

By LoraKim Joyner

Today we walked in beauty. Well, actually during all our nature walks we are surrounded by beauty, but today we lifted up the practice of seeing beauty, both without, and within. Of human beauty, we had 8 individuals, and of avian beauty we beheld 17 species. We were especially on the lookout for parent birds with their fledged chicks, not because it was father’s day but because it is baby bird season. Have you noticed? The only family we could recognize were the young grackles being fed by their parents. In seeing them, we were fed as well. With so many alert sets of eyes we got to see a number of treasures, even though summer can be a slow time for seeing birds because migration has ended. But the summer residents are here, such as a new species we recorded for our grounds – a pair of chimney swifts flying high over the crowns of the trees. Swifts, one of the oldest of all bird species, are remarkable in that they spend most of their life on the wing, even to sleep!

Thanks to all, avian and non, who made this such a lovely, pleasant morning. We will take July off and meet again on Sun Aug 24.

Bird List:

American robin
Red-breasted nuthatch
English house sparrow
Song sparrow
House finch
Northern Cardinal
Chimney swift
Common grackle
European starling
Black-capped chickadee
Carolina wren
Red-bellied woodpecker
Mourning dove
Catbird
American goldfinch
Bluejay
Northern flicker

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