PANDEMIC BIRDING CONTINUES TO DELIGHT!

It's still going on!!!!

Starting in early spring, we began sharing some of the birds we were seeing right here in our own backyard - and our thoughts about nature's healing powers at such an anxious and frightening time in the world and in our own nation's history. We called our first posts Birding at Six Feet, and many other birders contributed poems, musings and photos about their at-home birding adventures. We even saw a rarity: a hybrid between a Dark-eyed Junco and a White-throated Sparrow!

And then the orioles arrived! When these brilliantly-colored beauties finish their long flights from Florida or Central America or even farther south,  they need insects and juicy sugar-filled fruits to replenish their reserves of strength - but we had a late, cold spring here in Vermont. Flowers weren't blooming and the usual big hatches of flying bugs just weren't around. All over the state, people reported usually-shy orioles coming to eat suet at backyard feeding stations, or hanging onto the perches on hummingbird feeders to sip some nectar. 

We put out nectar, suet, chopped up fruits, and lots and lots of jelly. And we had Baltimore Orioles in the backyard, a few feet from the kitchen window, every day for a month!

We wondered if birding at home would continue to be wonderful, or whether we'd begin to feel increasingly "antsy" and want to venture farther afield. 

But our one-acre lot has continued to attract birds that, in turn, attracted our eye and our attention. Here are some of the birds we've seen over the last two weeks.

A big surprise and a first ever for this yard: At least three Scarlet Tanagers, an adult male all splotchy from molting, an adult female and a first-year male. Here are other views of the molting male, the female and the young male:

A pair of Gray Catbirds nested in the swampy part of our yard, fledging at least two youngsters. The family stuck around until 10/7, chowing down on wild grapes.

One of the catbirds spent many minutes apparently playing with a stick, like a drum major twirling a baton!

"Our" Common Yellowthroats were constant companions, searching for insects among the cattails, the fruiting trees and shrubs, and the vegetable garden.

Other warblers that have visited include Black-throated Green, Tennessees and Cape Mays. (We also saw many Yellow-rumped Warblers.)

A recent surprise - and another first for the yard - was a Golden-crowned Kinglet!

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Winter sparrows are starting to show up. They'll be around until spring, cleaning up dropped seed under the bird feeders (once it's safe to put the feeders up).

White-throated Sparrow

And we've been delighted to again host a lovely little Carolina Wren, a species that's been expanding its range northward.

Birding mostly in our backyard and on dirt roads in Jericho has turned out to be a real treat! Check out Bernie's blog posts about these walks by clicking this link and then exploring all the other parts of this series.

A friend asked, "How do you two keep such a big garden and still have time to take all those photos and see all those birds?" Here's what a birding gardener looks like!

photos by Bernie, words by Maeve