Today was the day!!!

Today was my first birding trip of the new school year.  It was quite a large group, since many of the Master Naturalist students were there as well as the regulars from the bird club.  Unfortunately, it was quite humid and foggy, making the surrounding habitat look monotone and gray.  It also had the unfortunate effect of silhouetting birds against the gray sky, making colors and patterns harder to identify.  We actually ended up seeing some more cool bugs than birds, but it was enjoyable all the same.  Here's a list of what we saw:

Chimney Swift
Carolina Chickadees
Tree Swallows
Female Indigo Bunting
Juvenile Cedar Waxwings (and then a whole flock of them, they were gorgeous)
Song Sparrow
2 House Wrens
Eastern Towhees
2 Downy Woodpeckers
Cooper's Hawk (an excellent view of a young male surveying the land from a silo)
Ruby Throated Hummingbird
and we heard a Brown Thrasher

we also saw you basic robins, crows, mockingbirds, starlings, etc. but you know....whatever.

The most exciting part of the day, ironically, was when I went to drop off my boyfriend, and noticed a flycatcher sitting on the fence nearby.  It turned out to just be an Eastern Phoebe, but it was still the most exciting bird of the day.  It had more yellow on it than I've ever seen on a Phoebe before, and it was bobbing its tail like mad.  Ah well, we did see some AWESOME garden spiders.

Birdy Campus

Today on campus there were hundreds of Chimney Swifts flying around the chemistry department.  It was like my dream come true...birds and chemistry.  Then, later on this evening, a Cooper's Hawk flew over the drillfield and was mobbed by some crows, which made for an exciting walk in the rain.  Last but not least, I heard a House Wren in a nearby tree, so of course I stalked over to it in the middle of a crowded sidewalk, probably gaining some odd stares from my peers.  I don't see House Wrens on campus very much (or ever really) though so I couldn't resist.  Good thing I have a boyfriend who accepts my random stares into the distance at the first note of a bird song.  I also saw a rain-drenched, bedraggled cardinal looking forlorn that I just couldn't leave out of this post.  All of this, along with Bird Night (we watched Raptor Force videos in an empty classroom), and along with The Big Year trailer coming out made for a wonderfully busy Tuesday.  I ALMOST FORGOT...this morning I got to learn how to take a blood sample from a canary!  I'm doing undergraduate research in the ornithology lab, and I got to learn how to hold them properly so as not to stress them out, how to sterilize their bracheal vein and pierce it, then use a capillary tube to get a small amount of blood for later use.  We'll be doing this on captured house finches once the experiment starts, but I got to practice on canaries (who were very docile and patient with me, bless their hearts) before we get the finches.  A VERY BIRDY DAY TO YOU ALL.