Each year the RIVER PARK NORTH BIRD CLUB holds annual spring and fall bird walks for its members through the park. I was fortunate to attend the spring walk this past Sunday morning and for those of you who missed it, I can only say that you missed one fantastic birding trip!! Our able guide, as usual, was Howard Vainright, the long time President of the bird club. We were fortunate to also have Professor Matt Louder, ECU Biologist on the walk. Matt will be speaking at our May 2 Bird Club meeting about his research on the parasitic relationship between Cowbirds and Prothonotary Warblers, and will be using the park as one site for the study. Between Howard and Matt, with their visual and song ID skills, and Matt’s phenomenal hearing, the birds did not have a chance to escape our detection. It was truly amazing that we were able to ID 55 different species in about 21/2 hours. This is quite a large number for one day in this park. As many of you know, I walk here at least a couple times a week, and I usually count 20-30 each day. What was amazing is that we saw one species, the Swainson”s Warbler, which none of us can ever remember seeing here in the park. For me, this was a life bird! I regret that many of you missed this great opportunity.
Of course, I was not able to get pictures of many of these as lots of them were identified by sound, but I did manage to get a few of them, including the Swainson’s Warbler, but unfortunately the pic is blurry as the bird was several feet back in low bushes and never really “posed” for the camera. You can make out a few details---
In the Gallery below, you can see the pictures I did get. Also, Matt Lowder put together a complete list of the species identified and provided an estimate of how many of each species we saw. You can find that list below the pictures. Be sure to be at the May 2 meeting!
Of course, I was not able to get pictures of many of these as lots of them were identified by sound, but I did manage to get a few of them, including the Swainson’s Warbler, but unfortunately the pic is blurry as the bird was several feet back in low bushes and never really “posed” for the camera. You can make out a few details---
In the Gallery below, you can see the pictures I did get. Also, Matt Lowder put together a complete list of the species identified and provided an estimate of how many of each species we saw. You can find that list below the pictures. Be sure to be at the May 2 meeting!
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