100 Backyard Birds

Looking out the window early this morning, I saw a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher flitting around from the pine tree to the dead oak. I didn't remember ever seeing a gnatcatcher in our backyard, so I called Shari over to look at what I assumed was our 100th Backyard Bird. Alas, when I looked up our backyard list on eBird, I saw that gnatcatcher was already on the list from a couple of years ago. However, on May 21st of this year, I noted two Laughing Gulls flying over the house. I didn't realize it at the time, but those were our 100th backyard species. (The rules for backyard birding are that any bird you see with your feet on your property counts as a backyard bird.) 100 species is just a round number. Lots of people have bigger (much bigger) backyard lists, but lots of people have bigger (much bigger) backyards, or their backyards include farmland, or beaches. Ours is just lawn with about 20 feet behind the house and about 100 along the side. The advantage we have is that we back up against the Whiting WMA, which provides a lot of customers for our feeders. The tangles and greenbrier just in back of our lawn is great nesting habitat for wrens, towhees, sparrows, and the dead trees are home to woodpeckers, chickadees, and even, one year, an attempt at nesting by a Red-breasted Nuthatch. 

Of course, we don't have 100 feeder birds. Just about every hawk and a couple of species of falcon has either been in our trees or flying overhead. I remember a spectacular aerial show by blackbirds who didn't fancy an immature eagle in the neighborhood. 

And then there are the one offs, like the amazing morning I looked up to see a Common Redpoll at our feeder, or the day I could swear I heard a Bobwhite outside and indeed found one (while standing on my lawn) in our neighbor's tree.

For a few years running we would get Rose-breasted Grosbeak in our yard for a few days, but this year I didn't see any. Doesn't mean they weren't here; just means that I can't monitor the feeders 24/7.

Only once have I seen a Blue Grosbeak at the feeder, and we're still missing Indigo Bunting and Scarlet Tanager. The tanager I would think would be a possibility with all our woods, the bunting unlikely, although some new habitat was created in the WMA a few years ago when a large swath of trees was cut down to make a firebreak. I'm all for firebreaks. 

And then of course, there are the 3 species I always list, every time I see or hear them: Eastern Whip-poor-will, Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Wild Turkey. Whip-poor-will and turkey were just not possibilities in Brooklyn, and I remember with a wry smile Shari hanging out on our 3rd floor fire escape the free hummingbird feeder we received when we joined NJ Audubon. Naturally, it never attracted a hummingbird. Luckily, it didn't become a rat soda fountain. Those three species are emblems to me of the day, some 11 years ago, when we said, "The hell with it, let's change our lives and move."