With Jeannette out of town – visiting our 2-week old nephew! - my birding time was limited each morning, so I stayed close to home, with Sasha alongside. With only a trickle of passerine migrants still moving through, now is the time to look around to see what’s breeding in the neighborhood.

On Tuesday, I spent a couple of hours birding the high-tension powerline cut that runs between Chadsey and Sweetser Rds in Pownal, and is bisected by Elmwood Rd. Wide powerline cuts provide good habitat for some rather uncommon – but in proper habitat, locally common – birds, such as Field Sparrows and Prairie Warblers. Depending on how often the cut is mowed, brushy habitats – which can be in short supply in this area, or at the very least are ephemeral (they soon mature out of brush and into woods in left alone) – can be of good enough size and quality to host a number of individuals of certain species. This wide (4 powerlines) cut, with a number of streams and wet areas, is one of the more productive stretches in my immediate area.

On Tuesday, I censured the cut. Here are the results.
16 Common Yellowthroats
14 Prairie Warblers (a suprisingly high count, which I was quite happy with)
10 Alder Flycatchers (quite dense, some may be migrants)
8 Nashville Warblers
6 White-throated Sparrows
4 Chestnut-sided Warblers
4 Field Sparrows
3 Eastern Kingbirds
3 Magnolia Warblers (2 were clearly territorial, I didn’t think they bred here.)
3 Eastern Towhees
2 Northern Flickers
2 Yellow Warblers
1 American Kestrel
1 Gray Catbird
lots of Song Sparrows, and this list doesn’t include birds seen or heard from the edge of the woods.

On Wednesday, I visited Hedgehog Mountain Park. I’ve had this feeling of late that the woods are quiet – very few birds are singing. It just doesn’t seem like many birds are around (and not just during our Birdathon last week!). However, more often than not, our memories always seem to exaggerate how many birds we were hearing “this time last year.” Therefore, anecdotal observations leading to comments like, “Boy, there are so few birds in the woods this year,” are not always based on fact or reality.

Standard, or even semi-standard counts, such as breeding bird surveys, organized censuses, etc then come in handy to see if our perceptions jive with reality. My perception this spring was that the local woods – including Hedgehog Mountain – were quieter than last year. On Wednesday, I tested that perception.

On the first Wednesday of each June (beginning last year), I do a census of the singing migrants (so not including resident birds like chickadees, titmice, etc) at The Hog, by walking a set route at a steady pace, and recording everything that I hear. This is by no means a scientific methodology (it would be repeated on multiple days, with as much standardization as possible), but it could yield some information. Today, I conducted my census, and compared it to last year’s survey. The first number is this year’s count, the number in parenthesis is last year’s count.

Ovenbird: 19 (17)
Red-eyed Vireo: 11 (10)
Black-throated Green Warbler: 6 (9)
Eastern Wood-Pewee: 4 (2)
Black-and-white Warbler: 4 (3)
Blue-headed Vireo: 3 (1)
Veery: 3 (2)
Hermit Thrush: 3 (0 – although I know they bred hear last year, I just didn’t hear any on that day).
Chipping Sparrow: 3 (2)
Wood Thrush: 2 (3)
Nashville Warbler: 2 (2)
Black-throated Blue Warbler: 2 (2)
Yellow-rumped Warbler: 2 (1)
Eastern Phoebe: 1 (3)
Eastern Kingbird: 1 (1)
House Wren: 1 (1)
Northern Parula: 1 (1)
Chestnut-sided Warbler: 1 (1)
Pine Warbler: 1 (1) - more than one of this species breed hear, but most of this early-arriving migrant are busy breeding now and aren’t singing as much anymore.
Canada Warbler: 1 (0)
Eastern Towhee: 1 (2)
White-throated Sparrow: 1 (2)
Scarlet Tanager: 1 (1)

Heard/seen last year, but not this year:
3 Blackburnian Warblers (they are around, but I just didn’t hear any today)
1 Magnolia Warbler
4 Common Yellowthroats (the lack of this species this year is probably only due to the fact that I can no longer walk out into the blueberry barren – which is private property and has now been closed to the public, much to my chagrin).
2 Great-crested Flycatchers

So, looking at the numbers, my perception – at least at Hedgehog Mountain Park, was wrong. The number of birds around are very, very similar to last year’s census. Now, to do this for real, I would have repeated this census on multiple days (and then taking the high count for each species), but this will do for now. So, happily, an eerie feeling that I was getting that there were “fewer birds around in the woods” this spring, was – for the most part – incorrect.

To complete my ‘hood birding for the week, I took Sasha on our 6-mile loop around the “neighborhood” this morning (Thursday) beginning and ending at our backyard.. The highlight for me (the highlight for Sasha was a dead skunk), was a male Yellow-bellied Sapsucker along Libby Rd, not far from where I had one about this time last year. I didn’t think they bred in this immediate area, so last year I dismissed this one sighting as an anomaly. Clearly, it was not. Unfortunately this bird – first seen foraging on an apple tree in a front yard – disappeared into woods that were private property, so I was unable to follow it to confirm breeding, perhaps.

Again today, I tallied select species. In this case, I noted how many singing males I heard of each warbler species (14!), as well as a few other uncommon breeders.

Ovenbird: 38
Common Yellowthroat: 23
Bobolink: 22++
Black-throated Green Warbler: 15
Black-and-white Warbler: 7
Yellow Warbler: 6
Chestnut-sided Warbler: 6
Nashville Warbler: 5
Rose-breasted Grosbeak: 5
Alder Flycatcher: 4
Black-throated Blue Warbler: 4
House Wren: 3
Yellow-rumped Warbler: 3
Least Flycatcher: 2
Blackburnian Warbler: 2
American Redstart: 2
Savannah Sparrow: 2
Warbling Vireo: 1
Wood Thrush: 1
Prairie Warbler: 1
Pine Warbler: 1
Canada Warbler: 1
Field Sparrow: 1

Not too shabby for three days in the neighborhood – with only a combined 9 miles of driving!