I do my best to survey everyday but this past week I had one day cancelled because of rain April 11th. I was able to add 9 new species to the total for the year bringing us to 61 species now. The new birds included: Great Blue Heron, House Wren, N. Rough-winged Swallow, Palm, Pine, and Yellow-rumped Warblers, Purple Finch, Ruby-crowned Kinglet and Wild Turkey. Migration this past week was mostly a trickle until the night of Saturday April 13th that night it was very warm and had southerly breezes all night so Sunday morning was pretty amazing with bunches of Hermit Thrush, Kinglets, early season Warblers and Sapsuckers. It was the first time this year that I hit the 50 species mark on a daily survey. Given the warmer and nicer than usual weather this past week we had some birds returning earlier than normal such as the House Wren and the Palm Warbler. Both of these species arrived about a week before normal. The Pileated Woodpecker was doing some house cleaning of a potential nest hole on Saturday constantly sticking its head out of a hole and throwing leaves and other such material out. Hopefully they decide to use this site again because it is a great view from the trail. This coming week I think we can expect to have some new arrivals like Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Blue-headed Vireo, or maybe even a Black-and-White Warbler, fingers crossed. Remember to get out on the trails and look and listen for all the new birds coming in each new week.
– John Brenneman, KNC Senior Avian Biologist
pictured: Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) at Kleinstuck Nature Preserve by John Brenneman
