K B Srinivas: 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.

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.