Today, we (I have to include the dogs, after all) took our daily walk through the swamp. On the way there, I passed a Northern Cardinal nest in our driveway and noticed that the adults are now feeding chicks. So, even though I thought I was finished with Nest Watch, I’ve gone ahead and added it to my app. I’d been taking notes when I noticed the female cardinal sitting dutifully on her nest at the edge of our driveway, so I had the data to add to my monitoring log.
Mama Northern Cardinal with two of the chicks peering over the edge of the nest.
I even know when the cardinal chicks hatched because I noted the male and female cardinals watching the activity happening in the nest on June 20. There are at least two chicks, but there may be more that I simply haven’t seen. I just hope I haven’t jinxed them by adding them to my nest monitoring log–in the past, nests I was monitoring didn’t seem to fare too well. But maybe this clutch will be fortunate.
Ad the edge of the fields on the way to the swamp, we were also really lucky to see a Yellow-billed Cuckoo.
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Cuckoos are usually so difficult for us to see although we hear them all the time, so I was really pleased when this one didn’t seem at all afraid of me. I took that as a good omen for the rest of the walk and it turned out to be true. We no sooner had entered when I saw a small flock of Prothonotary Warblers! Two adults, the male and the female, were in attendance to their newly fledged chicks, and even more interesting was that I believe the chicks had just fledged this morning! The parents were assiduously feeding and escorting the chicks through the saplings and underbrush in search of various insects to eat.
The chicks were still a little fluffy with down and just beginning to get the vibrant yellow of the adults on their bellies and heads.
Prothonotary Warbler, newly fledged this morning.
I couldn’t count all the birds, but I think there were about three fledglings, as well as the two adults.
“Feed me!” Fortunately for this fledgling, its papa did feed it with a nice, green caterpillar.
I was surprised to see newly fledged birds and really excited since I missed seeing the prothonotaries leave the nest box on our property. We’d put up several nest boxes for prothonotaries in the swamp, near where this small flock were foraging, but at the moment, I don’t know if they used any of the boxes or simply found a natural cavity nearby.
Papa Prothonotary Warbler – okay, I took this photo at the beginning of nesting season before the adults became a little bedraggled and frazzled with the demands of nesting… But it was a male in the vicinity of the small flock I saw today, so… I think it counts.
Mama and Papa Prothonotary Warbler stayed very close to their youngsters, so I’m hoping the chicks get a good start in life and return next summer.
A rat snake doomed to disappointment…
A little further into the swamp, I found this rat snake climbing a cypress in search of a bird nest. However, I’m afraid this fellow was doomed to disappointment because I scanned the tree and didn’t see any nests. Of course, I guess it’s a little sad for the rat snake since he has to go hungry…
Overall, the dogs and I had a good walk and saw a variety of interesting birds and snakes. In fact, I saw 44 different species of birds, which is a fairly average number around here. For those interested, I track the birds I see each day through a free app called eBird that is managed by Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology. It’s a great app that lets you record your observations and even upload photographs, bird songs, and it even displays a map showing where you were walking. I love it and try to go out every day, since I need to go out anyway to walk the dogs.
We are fortunate that we have nearly 100 acres so I have a lot of places to walk, even if a great deal of it is under water at the current time due to all the rain we’ve been having. I feel very fortunate and today was a great day.
