I hadn’t had much time to look for birds in Kentucky so far, but this weekend was a nice start. Yesterday we went to Raven Run Nature Sanctuary and, while it was a bit late in the day and the children weren’t exactly conducive to listening for birds in the woodland, I did see some nice things, including a White-eyed Vireo. Okay, not a spectacular bird in appearance, but it was the first one I’ve seen since my early childhood in Belize.
Today I went out early in the morning for my first proper birdwatching in Kentucky, albeit a short one since I needed to be back home by 9:15. It turns out I chose a good morning, since I immediately encountered a large flock of migrating warblers. In fact, I never made it more than a few hundred feet from my car. When I got home, there were a bunch of emails sitting on my computer from birders all over Kentucky reporting the presence of large numbers of warblers. My best sighting was a gorgeous Black-throated Blue Warbler, which is one of my favourite warblers and which, I am proud to say, is the first one recorded in eBird for the county.
Black-throated Blue Warbler (photo by Kenneth Cole Schneider)
So here’s my first proper Kentucky birdwatching report:
Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) 50 Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) 1 Green Heron (Butorides virescens) 1 Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura) 1 Yellow-billed Cuckoo (Coccyzus americanus) 2 Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) 3 Eastern Wood-Pewee (Contopus virens) 1 Least Flycatcher (Empidonax minimus) 1 Red-eyed Vireo (Vireo olivaceus) 1 Blue Jay (Cyanocitta cristata) 10 American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos) 2 Carolina Chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) 15 Tufted Titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor) 8 White-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) 1 Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus) 4 Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Regulus calendula) 1 Eastern Bluebird (Sialia sialis) 1 American Robin (Turdus migratorius) 25 European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) 10 Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) 1 Black-and-white Warbler (Mniotilta varia) 1 Tennessee Warbler (Oreothlypis peregrina) 1 Nashville Warbler (Oreothlypis ruficapilla) 2 American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla) 2 Magnolia Warbler (Setophaga magnolia) 1 Chestnut-sided Warbler (Setophaga pensylvanica) 1 Black-throated Blue Warbler (Setophaga caerulescens) 1 Eastern Towhee (Pipilo erythrophthalmus) 3 Field Sparrow (Spizella pusilla) 4 Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) 8 Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) 5 Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) 40 Common Grackle (Quiscalus quiscula) 1 American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) 3
Alan Schmierer