Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Birding at Bob Woodruff Park

It's been almost an year since I went for any kind of birding. Missed the complete warbler season this year thanks to house arrest to avoid catching the corona virus. We did see some warblers around our apartment complex. We had Black and White warblers, Yellow warbler and Common Yellow throat right in our backyard. My elder one used to make lists of the birds we would see around our walks. We had good number of Wrens, Waxwings and Robins this spring. We even rescued a baby Robin which was exciting for my son. This was his first foray into birding. Hoping for many more.

This weekend since everything opened couple of weeks back I decided to visit one of our local parks which is my favorite birding spots around. Usually this is a warbler magnet during the spring migration season which just passed. I still saw folks reporting sighting of some warblers in ebird and I thought will try my luck to see any late migrants.

I reached the park by the time sun came out. To my surprise the park was busy. There were lot of people doing their morning walks/running. As the temperature got warmer the park got little more busy with lot of people doing their biking and running. It was good to see so many people out after a long time.

The pond in the park was not very busy. It had mallards and some flyover swallows but nothing else in the pond. There was a lone Great-blue Heron trying to get its morning meal. Saw some Red-winged Blackbirds along with Brown-headed cowbirds. The bridge near the pond was busy with lot of the swallows flying in and out of their nests. The Chickadees and Wrens were among the loudest in the morning. The first interesting sighting of the day was Great Crested Glycatcher. There were some Black Pheobes and Flycatchers going back and forth in the thickets. I met one of the birder who said he saw a Blue Grosbeak earlier but I wasn't lucky.


Great Crested Flycatcher


Black Pheobe

Mourning Dove


Near the parula bridge it was busy. I saw lot of cardinals and some other interesting sightings were of Red-headed woodpecker, Olive-sided Flycatcher and Summer Tanager. I also saw the Red-headed woodpecker, Downy woodpeckers and Blue birds. In the trails inside the forest it was quite. The only interesting sightings were Easter-wood Pewee. 

Summer Tanager

Olive-sided Flycatcher

Tufted Titmouse

Eastern Wood-pewee


Red-bellied Woodpecker

Northern Cardinal

Eastern bluebird

Downy Woodpecker

Red-headed Woodpecker





After a long break it was very eventful birding walk. Can't wait to go back.

Birds seen during the day.

  1. Mallard  
  2. Mourning Dove  
  3. Ruby-throated/Black-chinned Hummingbird  
  4. Great Blue Heron  
  5. Red-shouldered Hawk  
  6. Red-headed Woodpecker  
  7. Red-bellied Woodpecker  
  8. Downy Woodpecker  
  9. Olive-sided Flycatcher       
  10. Eastern Wood-Pewee  
  11. Alder/Willow Flycatcher (Traill's Flycatcher)  
  12. Eastern Phoebe  
  13. Great Crested Flycatcher  
  14. Western Kingbird  
  15. Eastern Kingbird  
  16. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher  
  17. American Crow  
  18. Carolina Chickadee  
  19. Tufted Titmouse  
  20. Barn Swallow  
  21. Cliff Swallow  
  22. Carolina Wren  
  23. Northern Mockingbird  
  24. Eastern Bluebird  
  25. Red-winged Blackbird  
  26. Brown-headed Cowbird  
  27. Summer Tanager       
  28. Northern Cardinal  

2 comments:

  1. Hi Srinivas, I wanted to get in touch with you regarding an article you write back in 2013 about the birds at Infosys' bangalore campus. Would it be possible to connect to discuss this?

    ReplyDelete