Brown Thrasher and a few other notes

Some birds have moved on in the past few days, among them American Tree Sparrow, Fox Sparrow and Common Redpoll. Other fish-eating birds are here for the summer. A single loon is diving in our bay where it is joined periodically by single Ospreys and Great Blue Herons.

Less expected was the Brown Thrasher that was tossing leaves in the garden outside our kitchen window this morning.

We are still being visited several times each week by a female Red-bellied Woodpecker. She used to come for the sunflower seeds. Now, she only eats the suet.

Migration continues

Migration proceeds. In the morning we heard our first Yellow Warbler of the season. Blue Jays are particularly abundant at the feeders with up to 30 attending at a given time. Numbers of White-crowned Sparrows are omnipresent this week - today we saw up to eight at once and heard their song wonderful song continually. Shortly before dusk, we heard a Brown Thrasher.

A walk up through the hardwoods revealed some new arrivals - Ovenbirds sang in only a few territories. No doubt more will arrive in the coming days. We also heard Black-throated Green, Palm, Nashville, and Yellow-rumped Warblers, Blue-headed Vireos and Least Flycatcher.

In the evening, I paddled back into the cattail marsh to check on the status of the Wood Duck box. There was a lone male twenty metres from the box but there was no sign of the box being used. Also present in the bay was a female Common Merganser, a pair of Mallards, a pair of Common Loons, several Swamp Sparrows and a Belted Kingfisher.