84 species

Lorna has been talking about the bird activity outside the upstairs bathroom window so this morning I decided to check it out. Sure enough, there was some frantic activity involving small birds which, on a closer look, turned out to be two Black-capped Chickadees. Eventually I realized they were going in and out of a tree hole and my first thought was that they were feeding young. On closer examination, however, I decided that what they were doing was excavating an old knothole to make a suitable nest cavity. They were not carrying out fecal sacs from the nest hole (as I first thought) but beakfuls of sawdust!

Our bird species count for yesterday's Faunathon was an astonishing 84. Eileen listed 83 but I saw a Ring-billed Gull on the creek after we came back so that should make a total of 84. This is a very decent number considering that yesterday was not a particularly good migration day and that, with the exception of the shorebirds and a few warblers most of the species were fairly common local breeders (and we even missed a few of those). I'll be interested to hear what the overall day's total was -- both in the bird count and with regard to other species.

Eric Salzman