Jumping Brook Preserve | Colliers Mills 5/7--Warbling Vireo, Orchard Oriole

Orchard Oriole

I have been too much with people the last few days so today, knowing I wouldn't find anyone else there, I walked around the Jumping Brook Preserve in New Egypt, wearing plenty of tick repellent. Even with m permethrin pants and muck boots, some of the trails have grown too high to sensibly walk through them, so I walked way back on one trail that I hadn't explored too much in the past. Aside from the usual warblers, there wasn't much back there--I was hoping the oak trees would be attractive to them. Out on the bogs I did get one year bird, a pair of Orchard Orioles. Reading up on them, I was surprised to find that they are the smallest of the icterids. Which is why a female Orchard Oriole can be mistaken, at first glance, for a Pine Warbler. 

My last few trips to Colliers MillsI hadn't heard Warbling Vireo (it is such a nothingburger of a bird, that I don't spend time actually looking for one), so I drove over to there and hung around the parking lot for a few minutes until one sang. And sang. And sang.    There was a lot of dog training going on there and the firing of shotguns, so I wasn't too inclined to spend much time in the fields. In the woods I came across a Palm Warbler. According to eBird, they should be gone by now, but Palm Warbler is being reported all over the county, so, this year, at least, something odd is going on with their migration. 

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

When I got home, turkeys were gobbling on the lawn and kept it up for 3 hours. Big, fat birds strutting around your house making noise is entertaining for the first 5 or 10 minutes, then it gets to be a nuisance. More unusual for the yard, though, was a Brown Thrasher I that was picking up seeds under the feeder, and then, later in the day, Shari called from the patio that a Rose-breasted Grosbeak was on the suet. We get the grosbeak almost annually, but thrasher hasn't been in the backyard in almost 5 years. Later, it was singing, if you want to call it that, high up in a tree. It was background noise until it penetrated, then, like the turkeys, it stopped being entertaining.

The Jumping Brook list:

41 species
Canada Goose  2
Wood Duck  2
Mallard  8
Mourning Dove  3
Chimney Swift  1
Killdeer  1
Herring Gull  40
Great Blue Heron  2
Red-shouldered Hawk  1     Heard
Red-bellied Woodpecker  2
Northern Flicker  2
Eastern Phoebe  2
Great Crested Flycatcher  2
Eastern Kingbird  3
White-eyed Vireo  3
Red-eyed Vireo  1
Blue Jay  2
American Crow  1
Carolina Chickadee  2
Tufted Titmouse  4
Tree Swallow  1
White-breasted Nuthatch  1
Carolina Wren  2
Gray Catbird  10
Wood Thrush  2
American Robin  2
Chipping Sparrow  1
White-throated Sparrow  1
Song Sparrow  2
Eastern Towhee  2
Orchard Oriole  2
Red-winged Blackbird  30
Common Grackle  2
Ovenbird  10
Black-and-white Warbler  6
Common Yellowthroat  10
Northern Parula  1
Yellow Warbler  1
Pine Warbler  3
Prairie Warbler  1
Northern Cardinal  1