Thanksgiving Weekend Bird List

Some significant sightings from the last few days include:

Hundreds of blackbirds landing in the yard for a pit stop- Starlings and Grackles were feasting on the Virginia Creeper berries.





Yellow-rumped Warblers and Golden-crowned Kinglets continued to visit.




Our formal list for Saturday included: Blue Jays, Mourning Doves, 2 Chipping Sparrows, 5 Dark-eyed Juncos, Canada Goose (many flocks flying over and/or landing in adjacent fields), a record number of +50 Rock Pigeons, Down Woodpeckers, 2 American Robins (including some eating the grapes directly off the vine on the back porch), Black-capped Chickadees, Ruby-crowned Kinglets and the Hairy Woodpecker.





On Sunday we saw a male Red-winged Blackbird for the first time in weeks. We would later see two males RWBBs at my parents house.

We went for a hike in Glenorchy Conservation area on Sunday morning and we observed the following: Pileated Woodpecker, White-breasted Nuthatch, many White-throated Sparrows, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Cardinals, 2 great Blue Herons, an unidentified Hawk (unsure if it was Cooper's or Sharp-shinned as it was flying quickly overhead), Hermit Thrush (a new life lister for us!), Robins, Chickadees, Downy Woodpecker, an unknown Warbler (it was moving too quickly for us to get a detailed identification), Chipping Sparrows, Crows, Blue Jays, Canada Goose, and Juncos.

And to wrap up the weekend, we observed a Northern Mockingbird in the dead tree out back (another sighting we have not had for quite awhile). We also had more than 20 Dark-eyed Juncos in the yard on Monday afternoon.

So the highlight would definitely be the Hermit Thrush- another new addition to the life list! We were able to make the ID based on size, spots on the chest, and reddish tail. The Hermit Thrush is considered to have one of the most beautiful songs, but of course we didn't hear it sing (I guess it would be unlikely at this time of year).

Whatbird.com lists these interesting facts about the Hermit Thrush:

* In the Appalachian Mountains the Hermit Thrush is displaced at lower elevations by the Veery and at higher elevations by Swainson's Thrush.
* East of the Rocky Mountains it usually nests on the ground. In the West, it is more likely to nest in trees.
* Walt Whitman construes this bird as a symbol of the American voice, poetic and otherwise, in his elegy for Abraham Lincoln, 'When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'.
* A group of thrushes are collectively known as a "hermitage" and a "mutation" of thrushes.