When we drove across the Nonconnah Creek bridge, heading to Riverport Road, the air under the bridge was swarming with Cliff Swallows (Petrochelidon Pyrrhonota). They have dark necks and orange rumps and they never stop flying in lazy elipses. Berry wanted me to use the word, "circles"; I wanted to describe what happened.
All through the Riverport area, we heard the waxy squirting whistle of the Indigo Bunting (Passerina cyanea) in the trees. We never actually saw this bird, yet we heard it clearly. We know this bird because we have experienced it many times. We know its distinctive call. On our birding trip list, when we hear a bird and can identify it from the sound, yet cannot or choose not to spend lots of time looking for it with the binoculars, we indicate this bird with an eighth note on our birding list.
Indigo Bunting♪
We put an eighth note on the List for the Northern Parula (Parula americana), which we did not see either. We call it the zipper-bird, due to its zipper-like song.
At the large Tailing Pond near the Allen Steam Plant, we saw an Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus) seeming to hover in the updraft. This bird does not hover, but in the same way that seagulls hang above a crashing wave, these birds carefully ride the wind current. He seemed to be having fun.
The only ducks we spotted were Mallards (Anas Platyrhynchos). I guess they have all gone to Canada for their Summer vacation. There were a pair of Pied-Billed Grebes (Podilymbus Podiceps) sitting in the middle of a wet area.
On the right side of the road, in a slowly flowing ditch, there were two beautiful Black-Necked Stilts (Himantopus Mexicanus). These we usually see in the Maynerd Stiles Treatment Plant north of downtown. Nice choice for the "Bird of the Day".
Other than these mentioned, we also saw the usual cast of characters. Nice little birding trip.
Robert and Berry Photo courtesy of wikipedia
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