My Big Month - Day 9

"Unexpected" would be the word to describe my walk around the park this evening after work. After beautiful weather earlier in the week, it appears we are on the downhill portion of our ongoing weather-roller-coaster this spring. With the temperature at only 46 degrees and strong winds, I actually wore my winter hat this evening! I also had to scour my entire vehicle to find a pair of gloves too. So with such crummy conditions, I was truly not expecting to see much tonight but I was entirely wrong about that. There were many highlights of the evening -some of which I'll put on my flickr page as I'm trying to keep these daily posts short and manageable. The first was seeing a pair of male Baltimore Orioles fighting over territory. Another was seeing an unidentified Warbler -which I now know was a Wilson's Warbler (very first for me) and still another was seeing a Sora up close and out in the open! Oh, I also saw hundreds of White-throated Sparrows who were singing constantly as well.

The one bird I want to post here tonight however is a Warbler that I've only seen once before. Because I've been watching for birds more on the ground than in the trees, I was able to spot this Ovenbird on the north end of the park. I desperately wanted a better photo and so I stalked him through the woods as best I could. That proved to be extremely challenging because every time I got too close for comfort, he quickly doubled the distance between us again. Eventually I must have been making too much noise and he flew up into a tree some distance ahead of me. At least he was out in the open here and not hidden by all the ground cover.

Total species seen today: Ovenbird, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Palm Warbler, Black and White Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Wilson's Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, Red-winged Blackbird, American Crow, Common Grackle, Brown-headed Cowbird, Mourning Dove, Black-capped Chickadee, Brown Thrasher, Wild Turkey, Ring-necked Pheasant, Great Blue Heron, Mallard, American Coot, Canada Goose, White-throated Sparrow, American Tree Sparrow, American Robin and Sora.

Conditions: 46 degrees, overcast and very windy.