Spring migration gives birders plenty to chat about
These beautiful spring days beckon me outdoors, but commitments (like writing a book) keep me inside much of the time right now.
But if I can't be outside, the next best thing is reading the reports that stream in daily on the Georgia birders’ chat line. Birders from all over the state give an account each day of what they are seeing in their backyards and in the woods, fields and wetlands.
With spring migration in full swing, the chat line is especially busy now. Here’s a sampling of this week’s reports:
- Stan Chapman of DeKalb County spotted two orchard orioles and a little blue heron from the observation deck in the Clyde Shepherd Nature Preserve in Decatur -- the first time he'd ever seen those two species there. "The little blue heron flew several times into the vicinity of the Canada goose nest and was chased off each time by agitated geese," he said.
- Giff Beaton of Marietta said that while birding on Kennesaw Mountain in Cobb County, "we enjoyed 24 species of warblers, including several species in large numbers and several seasonal firsts including magnolia and bay-breasted warblers. Some of the good high counts included 46 rose-breasted grosbeaks [a new spring daily high count] and 32 hooded warblers."
- Matt Ward, who lives in Midtown Atlanta, reported: "We were having an evening picnic on the east side of Piedmont Park when a red-tailed hawk came out of nowhere and snatched a female brown-headed cowbird not 30 feet from us!"
- Liz Horsey in northwest Atlanta said she heard a whippoorwill for the first time in her urban yard. It was around daybreak. "Something new in my 25 years here," she noted.
- Doris Cohrs of McIntosh County on the coast said a male indigo bunting visited her feeder just before dusk one evening. "His vibrant blue really knocks off one's socks," she said.
- Wayne Schaffner of Tifton said that while visiting Reed Bingham State Park near Adel, he observed two newly fledged bald eagles -- "a memorable experience." He had seen the mother eagle sitting on the nest the day after Christmas. (Nearly a third of Georgia's 159 counties had active eagle nests this year.)
- Brad Bergstrom of Valdosta said he witnessed from his driveway at about 10:30 the other night a major northbound flight of migrating thrushes (gray-cheeked thrush, Swainson's thrush, veery). Fifty to 100 birds per minute were flying over. "Pretty impressive," he said.
In the sky: The Eta Aquarid meteor shower will reach a peak of about 20 meteors per hour Wednesday morning and will continue through next weekend. Look to the southeast from about midnight until dawn. Light from the moon, which will be in last quarter on Wednesday, may interfere with seeing the fainter meteors, said David Dundee, an astronomer with the Tellus Northwest Georgia Science Museum.
Venus is low in the west just after sunset. Mars, which will become dimmer and smaller this month, rises out of the east before sunset and sets in the west before dawn. Jupiter is low in the east just before sunrise. Saturn rises out of the east before sunset and is visible throughout the night.
