My Big Month - Day 14

I'm pretty happy that today marks two weeks of birding every day! I was able to get back to Palmer Lake Park again after a field trip to a different location yesterday. Our weather has changed drastically (again), this time the other way though as it was 95 degrees this evening! I don't particularly like it that warm but there was no humidity and the strong wind made it feel kind of nice actually. I had spoken with a friend –and very good birder– last night and his prediction was that the swing in temperature coupled with the strong winds might blow out a lot of Warblers from our area, meaning that they would continue traveling northward. This did seem to be true as I hiked around the park and didn't see any Palm Warblers, Black-and-Whites, or Ovenbirds. And I saw a total of only 3 Yellow-rumped Warblers which is drastically less than I've been seeing lately. I did however find one new Warbler that has just recently returned –the Common Yellowthroat. I have been looking for them for quite some time already and in years past they seemed to be the first Warbler I would notice each season. But I wonder now if that was really accurate or if it was a reflection of how much more closely I am watching the birds now each Spring. I watched this particular male and one other one foraging through the dead cattails for insects for quite a while. Once in a while he'd pop out into the open for an unobstructed view. I saw quite a few other good birds this evening but I actually had one more big highlight of the evening that I want to mention and share a photo of here. I'd walked around counter clock-wised tonight (dumb idea with the sun) and when I got to the wood chip trail on the southwest side I noticed a lot of activity high up in a tree above me. I was mostly seeing these birds from the underside but every once in a while I'd catch a glimpse of them from the side and noticed that they were a pretty striking blue color. Only just yesterday I had noticed a photo of a similar looking bird posted on a fantastic Minnesota Nature Blog I follow called "Nature Notes." I snapped as many photos as I could, hoping to compare them to the photo I remember seeing from this blog and sure enough I had seen a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher! In fact there were at least 2, maybe 3 of them in the same tree as I watched and took photos this evening. They were really hard to photograph as they hopped around quickly. I was very lucky to catch this and one other decent photo -the other of which I will post to my flickr page later. I really enjoyed seeing this brand new bird for me and just loved how blue they are on top!

Total species seen today: Common Yellowthroat, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Northern Waterthrush, Yellow Warbler, American Redstart, Brown-headed Cowbird, Northern Cardinal, American Robin, Black-capped Chickadee, Wild Turkey, Song Sparrow, American Tree Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Least Flycatcher, Hairy Woodpecker, Mourning Dove, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Tree Swallow, American Goldfinch, Baltimore Oriole, Great Blue Heron, Green Heron, Brown Thrasher (with female on nest), Mallard, Blue-winged Teal, Northern Shoveler and Canada Goose.

Conditions: 95 degrees and very windy!