Towheeblog

I am in Lincoln for a family event.  And some early morning birding confirmed my suspicon that the woods would be full of mosquitoes.  Fortunately there were nearly as many birds as buzzers.  I managed to keep my blood loss to a minimum.

The music came from the repetitive exclamations of the Red-eyed Vireo; mewlings of Catbirds who were always the first to answer a pish; the insistent songs of House Wrens aplenty; and the softer tones of chickadees, nuthatch and American Goldfinch.  Out in the open area along the railroad tracks the Blue Jays screamed at my intrusion while a curious cuckoo peered at me through dense leaves.  Bullfrogs croacked from the edge of a small pond.  When the Common Grackles took alarm they sounded much like Brewer’s Blackbirds back in Oregon, but their tails are far more, and far more impressive. Pictures above: Common Grackle, Eastern Kingbird, Indigo BUNTING (NOT grackle as orginally posted).

Wilderness Park, Lancaster, US-NE May 24, 2012 7:45 AM. Comments:     many mosquitoes. 22 species

Black-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus erythropthalmus)  1. Ruby-throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris)  1. Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens)  1 Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)  1 Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus)  1. Red-eyed Vireo (Vireo olivaceus)  15. Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata)  3 American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos)  2 Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica)  2. Black-capped Chickadee (Poecile atricapillus)  2. White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis)  1 House Wren (Troglodytes aedon)  15. Swainson’s Thrush (Catharus ustulatus)  1 American Robin (Turdus migratorius)  2. Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis)  20. Orange-crowned Warbler (Oreothlypis celata)  1. Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus)  1 Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra)  1 Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)  6. Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea)  4. Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula)  4. American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis)  8.