My Big Month - Day 16

With my vehicle being pretty much out of service, my best bet to get out birding today was to visit Hillside Cemetery again over my lunch hour at work. It was a beautiful sunny day, with temps more like summer again -somewhere in the mid 80's I think. Being that I don't "hike" the cemetery as regularly as I do Palmer Lake Park, I haven't quite figured out the hot spots yet for birds. There's a few lines of trees and fences where they let the trees grow more wild and these seem like better areas to me. My bird counting wasn't going all that great in the beginning but then I spotted an odd looking Sparrow that seemed to have a real dark patch on it's face. I wondered if it was a Harris' Sparrow as I've never seen one before. I got one decent enough photo to zoom in on at home and sure enough it was a Harris's! I know these birds are only seen during migration so it was a great sighting for me. As I worked my way towards the back side of the cemetery, I started to hear Bluebirds and followed the sound to a couple of trees that were more dead than alive. Here I found my best birding of the day, with Eastern Bluebirds, a Baltimore Oriole and an Eastern Kingbird all in the same tree. I watched the Bluebirds fly out to a wide open area to perch on various poles and water faucets and then return to the trees. They really do seem to like wide open spaces more than other birds in our area. It was while I was watching the Bluebirds that the Kingbird flew in and perched much lower to the ground. I kept stepping closer and closer to him and surprisingly he/she just stayed put. I couldn't believe how close I got in fact. I was almost in arms length just watching this bird turn it's head from side to side and sometimes upwards. After a while it also started to chirp a little and I was surprised to hear such a high-pitched sound come from this rather large bird. It almost sounded like a Junco to me. Later when I was heading back I ran into a group of 7 or 8 Wild Turkeys, some of which appeared to be almost rolling in the dirt among a patch of planted shrubs. I was also somewhat surprised to see both a Yellow-rumped Warbler and a Palm Warbler!

Total species seen today: Eastern Bluebird, Eastern Kingbird, Harris' Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, Blue Jay, American Crow, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle, Brown-headed Cowbird, Baltimore Oriole, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Palm Warbler, Bald Eagle, Hermit Thrush, Wren, American Robin, Hairy Woodpecker and Wild Turkey.

Conditions: 82 degrees and sunny with a slight breeze.