07 May Birding with Sutton School

This morning I went birding with the students of grade 3 and 4 of Sutton Elementary school as well as with Kelly, Maude and Claire.  It was a great day for birding.

Earlier this spring (April 8) we wend birding in the village. We checked out Curley street, the marsh area near the water source, walked the bike path near the park and back up behind the school. We observed 13 species. Most of the kids in this class are very interested and excited. Today we took a different route. Since many warblers are back from the south we decided to go see if we could find the Ovenbird on the village-mountain trail. As you can see from the photo, the leaves are not fully out yet, so we had a pretty good chance of seeing it. Well, we did find it. In fact 2 of them perched on a branch right in front of us. Later we heard the ovenbird’s song on more than one occasion singing “Teacher, Teacher, TEACHER, TEACHER!” We also heard the Blackburnian warbler which is the first time for me this spring!  Another highlight was the broad-winged hawk that circled overhead!

I had seen a crow’s nest along the path yesterday and had a bit of trouble finding it again. Then we heard the chicks making a not- so-pretty sound in the nest which helped us spot it with our binoculars. We also saw one of the adult crows eating what looked like a chunk of meat while perched on a nearby stump.

We had some quiet moments including sitting on the grassy field. Some of the kids found some worms too and saw a deer. The weather was nice and we even ran into Maude’s mom on the trail.  Add that it was Claire’s birthday too. Overall we saw 15 bird species:

Broad-winged Hawk
Northern Flicker
Blue Jay
American Crow
Black-capped Chickadee
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Red-breasted Nuthatch
Winter Wren
Hermit Thrush
American Robin
House Finch
Chipping Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Ovenbird
Blackburnian Warbler

It was  pleasure birding with this group and the time flew by! Thanks!