Andrew Clem.com home
Wild Bird Watching
Montage

Recent observations (blog)

 

Roll mouse over this montage to see some photos taken by my brother John, and roll away to see photos of birds I took in Costa Rica. To read captions identifying the birds in these photo montages, CLICK HERE.


Wild Birds archives



Birding Web sites:


 

Favorite warblers
(already seen):

  1. Chestnut-sided warbler
  2. Magnolia warbler
  3. Prothonotary warbler
  4. Blackburnian warbler
  5. Yellow warbler
  6. Northern parula
  7. Black-throated green warbler
  8. Canada warbler
  9. Common yellowthroat
  10. American redstart

Yet-unseen warblers:
(eastern species)

  • Blue-winged warbler
  • Kirtland's warbler
  • Swainson's warbler
  • Bachman's warbler (extinct?)

Yet-unseen warblers:
(western & semitropical)

  • Virginia's warbler
  • Lucy's warbler
  • Colima warbler
  • Crescent-chested warbler
  • Tropical parula
  • Black-throated gray warbler
  • Golden-cheeked warbler
  • Townsend's warbler
  • Hermit warbler
  • Grace's warbler
  • MacGillivray's warbler
  • Bahama yellowthroat
  • Belding's yellowthroat
  • Gray-crowned yellowthroat
  • Bahama yellowthroat
  • Red-faced warbler
  • Painted redstart
  • Slate-throated redstart
  • Fan-tailed warbler
  • Golden-crowned warbler

"Abundant" birds
(ones I normally don't bother counting):

  • European starlings
  • House sparrows
  • Cardinals
  • Tufted timice
  • Carolina chickadees
  • Carolina wrens *
  • Song sparrows
  • House finches *
  • Gray catbirds *
  • Mockingbirds
  • American robins *
  • Blue jays
  • Common grackles *
  • American crows
  • Fish crows *
  • Turkey vultures
  • Canada geese
  • Mallards

  • * Sometimes less common

No automatic redirect? Please click HERE to go to the new Wild Birds blog page, as explained below.

April 17, 2006 [LINK]

Web site Spring cleaning

As part of my relentless, never-ending efforts to make this Web site more automated and interactive, I have begun a transition to a new blog system that will entail a slight change in Web site addresses. Unless I have slipped up somewhere, you shouldn't notice any differences in page format or functionality for the time being. In a slight departure from blogosphere custom, the blog entries on the archives pages will henceforth be listed in natural chronological order, starting with the earliest date. To me, that makes it a lot easier to review old material. For the time being, the "legacy" blog and archive pages (".shtml") will remain intact, and they will eventually have an automatic redirect to the new pages (".php"). As part of this transition, there will be feedback features in the near future, as long promised. Note that the new Macintosh & Miscellanous page serves as the residual catch-all for all blog posts that don't fit into any other categories. That means general culture, religion, music, movies, science, computer technology, and non-baseball sports. From now on, the monthly and categorical archives pages will include all blog entries, up to and including the current date. Therefore, there will be some overlap between current blog pages and archive pages. Here are the new and old addresses for the main blog categories. Please adjust the bookmarks in your Web browser accordingly, and as always, "thank you for your $upport."

CATEGORY OLD URL NEW URL
Central blog page index.shtml index.php
Baseball Baseball/index.shtml Baseball.php
Latin America LatinAmerica/index.shtml LatinAmerica.php
Macintosh / Miscellaneous Macintosh.shtml MacMisc.php
Our canaries HomeBirds.shtml HomeBirds.php
Politics Politics.shtml Politics.php
War War.shtml War.php
Wild birds WildBirds.shtml WildBirds.php

One of the tradeoffs with this new system is that I will lose flexibility in making cross blog posts between more than one category. From now on, each post will appear on one, and only one blog category page. That is why you will see this blog post (classified as "miscellaneous") on the old Baseball blog page, but not the new one.

UPDATE: Another change is that for each successive day, blog posts on the central blog page will henceforth be listed from top to bottom in reverse alphabetical order of their category (wild birds first, baseball last), irrespective of what time of day they were originally posted.

Reminder: Legacy blog pages (ending in ".shtml") will not be updated after today. Please choose one of the new blog pages.


April 16, 2006 [LINK]

House wrens arrive

Carolina Wren singing Still no warblers behind the Staunton-Augusta Rescue Squad this happy Easter morning, but I did see a House wren for the first time this season. Indeed, it was the earliest date in the Spring I had ever seen one. I also heard a probable Blue-headed vireo and saw several Cedar waxwings and some Ruby-crowned kinglets, but nothing else out of the ordinary. The usual woodpeckers, White-breasted nuthatches, and singing Cardinals and Towhees were quite prominent, and Purple finches were everywhere.

Speaking of wrens, click on the adjacent image to see a 30-second video of the Carolina wren singing his little heart out. It was taken three days ago. Unlike most birds, Carolina wrens have less color during the warmer months of the year. Click the camera icon below to see one in its winter plumage.