Four members and friends of the Hartford Audubon Society met field trip leader, Jay Kaplan, in the Roaring Brook Nature Center parking lot on Sunday, May 2, 2021 at the bright and early hour of 6:30 am. The 2.5 hour itinerary included a leisurely walk along the Nature Center trails, and those on the adjacent Werner’s Woods, state-owned property for which the Nature Center serves as steward. It was immediately apparent that the morning would be an improvement over the previous day, as scarlet tanager and veery were heard from the parking lot for the first time this year. The strong northwest wind that had begun Friday night and carried through much of Saturday had abated, allowing for an influx of spring migrants the night prior to our walk. A flowering crabapple adjacent to the Nature Center building provided a good site for warblers with yellow-rumped and northern parula feeding in the blossoms. The fields around the old barn were especially productive with three singing Baltimore orioles, eastern towhees and gray catbirds easy to see. The wind, having shifted to the south, was ideal for migrants, and looking up offered views of migrating double-crested cormorants, as well as common merganser and Canada goose going somewhere. The fields also served up tree and barn swallows, eastern bluebird, and a couple of brief looks at a Cooper’s hawk; a pileated woodpecker flying across the field was an added bonus. We headed back into the woods in search of both migrants and resident songbirds. One bird of note that seemed very interested in a particular dead hemlock tree was a female, red-breasted nuthatch, and we wondered if there might be a nest nearby. Red-breasted nuthatch is not a common breeder in these woods, but following an irruption of these birds last winter, it is more likely that some will remain to nest. Perhaps the most interesting sighting was a pair of purple finches feeding on catkins high in a black birch tree. Purple finch is now an uncommon breeder in our area. The calls and songs of winter wren, wood thrush, blue-headed vireo, and several warblers including the uncommon worm-eating warbler, serenaded us we headed back to the Nature Center. We ended our trip with a barred owl calling from the woods near the building and a ruby-throated hummingbird zoomed over our heads while we compiled our lists. The total for the morning was 53 species including 9 warblers. A trip list is found below.
Jay Kaplan, Trip Leader
Trip Birds
- Canada Goose
- Common Merganser
- Double-crested Cormorant
- Great Blue Heron
- Black Vulture
- Cooper’s Hawk
- Red-shouldered Hawk
- Mourning Dove
- Barred Owl
- Red-bellied Woodpecker
- Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
- Downy Woodpecker
- Hairy Woodpecker
- Pileated Woodpecker
- Eastern Phoebe
- Blue-headed Vireo
- Blue Jay
- American Crow
- Tree Swallow
- Barn Swallow
- Black-capped Chickadee
- Tufted Titmouse
- Red-breasted Nuthatch
- White-breasted Nuthatch
- House Wren
- Winter Wren
- Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
- Ruby-crowned Kinglet
- Eastern Bluebird
- Veery
- Wood Thrush
- American Robin
- Gray Catbird
- Ovenbird
- Worm-eating Warbler
- Louisiana Waterthrush
- Black-and-white Warbler
- Common Yellowthroat
- Northern Parula
- Palm Warbler
- Yellow-rumped Warbler
- Black-throated Green Warbler
- Eastern Towhee
- Chipping Sparrow
- Song Sparrow
- White-throated Sparrow
- Scarlet Tanager
- Northern Cardinal
- Common Grackle
- Brown-headed Cowbird
- Baltimore Oriole
- Purple Finch
- American Goldfinch
