Every spring for me is a reunion of sorts. Sure I've seen hundreds of warblers even thousands over my long birding career . But personally I look at it this way: it's a reunion with "friends".
So I set out this afternoon in pursuit of Louisiana Waterthush, a bird I missed several times already reacting to alerts this young spring .The latest had been Lily Pond sightings and three times I missed the bird .
Not giving in too easily , I decided to follow upstream to try my luck. Along Binnen Water through the Ravine and finally ending up at Ambergill Creek, I lucked out.Until I stuck it out on the Esdale Bridge..And that paid off finally: I saw a flash dropped in among small boulders and there was my prize -Louisiana Waterthrush! And this bird was cooperative ! I was able to observe it for a good ten minutes, a well rewarded gift to myself for preserving .
My other notable sighting was a mixed pair of Rusty Blackbirds at Lily Pond , another cooperative species ,working the right shoreline from my vantage on Binnen Bridge.
Other birders reported a few good ones elsewhere. A perched Bald Eagle overlooked the Smorgasbord event on Breeze Hill, likely wanting to join the party ( later another eagle or the same one chased an osprey on the lake before perching on the Hammerhead in the early evening ) ; Green heron and Raven were spotted in Greenwood Cemetery and the Iceland Gull continues in Bush Terminal Pier park, either on the water or on the broken Pier.
Then a weird report of Raven macabre behavior. I read a report of Ravens eating eggs from a nest at Prospect and Prospect Park West avenues . I'm a little skeptical but in this neighborhood, anything's possible! 😄
And from Humming-Bird to Eagle, the daily existence of every bird is a remote and bewitching mystery.
~Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "The Life of Birds," Out-door Papers, 1868
