Inside my 5MR

Inside my 5MR there’s a lot going on. First off, spring is finally here!

It is the best of times. Although extra rainy lately, there were a few sunny moments when the flowers were blooming and the hummers were humming. There’s a lot of 5MR babies happening.

This little Anna’s Hummingbird in the nest by my work has already fledged! The flowers haven’t even finished blooming, but I saw the little chubster buzzing around the few open petals. Last year’s brood took way longer to fledge, I’m guessing because there were two babies. And speaking of two babies, here’s two owlets that were born this spring at Whitaker Ponds.

Whitaker Ponds has been really good to me with a few recent 5MR additions including Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Pileated Woodpecker (the best surprise and a tough 5MR bird for me), and my FOY (and first I’ve seen at Whitaker) lovely lady Rufous Hummingbird!

The other booming hotspot is Broughton Beach. There’s a limitless stream of off-leash dogs and new birds to look at. I finally caught up with the Red-throated Loon that’s still being seen regularly.

And thanks to my friend Eric’s help, I added a distant Common Loon to the club.

5MR time is the best time to get excited about Brown-headed Cowbirds.

Even better Cliff Swallows, Savannah Sparrows, and our same Rough-legged Hawk that visited last year! This is the best hawk.

Another day I left work early to beat the traffic to the Clark’s Grebe hanging out at Hayden Island.

I stopped by Fazio Way (where the Palm Warbler hung out) after to see if there might be a Horned Lark or Red-shouldered Hawk, there wasn’t, but I did find my FOY Common Yellowthroat!

While looking at the yellowthroat the craziest thing happened. Colby texted to tell me he’d found another Vesper Sparrow, this time at Broughton Beach. A 5MR/county Vesper Sparrow?! What luck that I was only ten minutes away, I hurried over fast as I could and it worked!

Colby had to leave, but he’d mentioned he’d had a Dunlin fly-by so I made sure to check the shore. He left, then wait, WTH is that?!

An American Avocet flew in!!! It nonchalantly strolled the beach while my mind melted. I hadn’t even finished admiring the Vesper Sparrow, but now I had to regroup, and call Colby back immediately. I was the only one there, until the dog walkers showed up who thankfully cooperated when I pleaded with them to keep their dogs on the opposite side of the beach so some friends of mine could see this bird. I’m sure I sounded totally sane.

It was a tense set of minutes. I put the word out on OBOL and luckily, a few people were able to come out and see it, including Duke Tufty, Nick Mrvelj, and Colby. And Eric who biked his heart out and got the Vesper’s and Avocet in under 30 seconds. The best kind of birding that never happens! There have only been three other Avocet sightings at Broughton beach and all of them in the fall. It was such a lucky sighting.

Wishing every day could be birding days like this.

Tweets and chirps,

Audrey