This Sunday morning I arrived at the park just after 8am and was once again seeing lots of American Redstarts. They were high up in the trees today and making me realize how tough it is to see them near the ground as I did yesterday. I wanted to check on the "re-built" Cooper's Hawk nest today and was happy to see at least one chick peering over the edge of the nest. With all the activity surrounding this nest lately I really hope at least one of them makes it into adulthood but only time will tell.
I don't remember exactly where I saw this Common Yellowthroat. They are very very common at the park, but yet another common Warbler that can be hard to catch a good photo of. Like the American Redstart, the Common Yellowthroat doesn't seem to want to come out into the open very much, preferring to hide in thickets near cattails or among the cattails themselves. You'll most always hear a Yellowthroat before seeing it as they are quite loud for such a small little bird.
They have a great and easy to remember call and I've had a fair amount of success attracting them closer by using recordings from my iphone -and even my own poorly imitated whistles. I've really come to associate their sound with the warm summertime. You can hear their sound and a lot of other birds on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology site
Common_Yellowthroat/sounds. They say that birds often have different "dialects" in different areas and I would have to agree because the recording at this link sounds different than the Yellowthroats I hear every day at the park. The pitch or tone is the same but the emphasis and tempo are different. Later on towards the end of my walk I could see a Northern Flicker up ahead on the ground along the edge of the paved trail. Flickers apparently love to eat ants right off the pavement and they spend a fair amount of time on the ground.
After I tried to sneak up behind him he flew just a little ways up into a tree and I was able to catch him before he went up even higher. This one is a male as he has a black "mustache" marking behind the bill whereas the female has no markings here at all.
I don't remember exactly where I saw this Common Yellowthroat. They are very very common at the park, but yet another common Warbler that can be hard to catch a good photo of. Like the American Redstart, the Common Yellowthroat doesn't seem to want to come out into the open very much, preferring to hide in thickets near cattails or among the cattails themselves. You'll most always hear a Yellowthroat before seeing it as they are quite loud for such a small little bird. 
They have a great and easy to remember call and I've had a fair amount of success attracting them closer by using recordings from my iphone -and even my own poorly imitated whistles. I've really come to associate their sound with the warm summertime. You can hear their sound and a lot of other birds on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology site Common_Yellowthroat/sounds. They say that birds often have different "dialects" in different areas and I would have to agree because the recording at this link sounds different than the Yellowthroats I hear every day at the park. The pitch or tone is the same but the emphasis and tempo are different. Later on towards the end of my walk I could see a Northern Flicker up ahead on the ground along the edge of the paved trail. Flickers apparently love to eat ants right off the pavement and they spend a fair amount of time on the ground. 
After I tried to sneak up behind him he flew just a little ways up into a tree and I was able to catch him before he went up even higher. This one is a male as he has a black "mustache" marking behind the bill whereas the female has no markings here at all.
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