crossing the creek

In addition to the finches (Gold- and House), there are an extraordinary number of Blue Jays around, some of which at least must have come from elsewhere. There were numbers of Song Sparrows all along the edge of the marsh this morning although these birds had given up their territorial claims  weeks ago. Northern Flickers have been noticeably active and even seem to outnumber the Red-bellied Woodpeckers; where are they coming from? Although these are birds that we don't ordinarily think of as migrants (and they don't go to the tropics for the winter), they in fact move around a lot, sometimes traveling along the shore in big numbers. Even the Black-capped Chickadees are known to migrate south. Unless, we band individual birds, there is no way to know if the birds we see at this time of year or in the winter are the same birds that stay to breed in the spring.

There was a nice breeze on the creek and, as the sky cleared, it looked as though it might turn into a good hawk day. It didn't happen and I ended up mostly watching a local bayman -- one of the few left -- as he made his rounds on the creek baiting his traps. There were Osprey of course -- always between two and four individuals perched or flying on the creek plus a few high flyers who were probably migrants. There were two accipters, a Cooper's and a Sharp-shinned Hawk, neither one of which would fly directly across the creek. Accipiters in general and Sharp-shinned in particular don't like to cross bodies of water and many (if not most) of them seem to move up the creek to cross over at a narrower point (we're at the mouth of the creek where it's fairly wide).

Eric Salzman