I walked the Baselands on the Leslie Street Spit this morning, looking for spring arrivals. These were my four target species:
Fox Sparrow
Found one on the southern edge of the Wet Woods. It attracted my attention not by its famous fluted whistle but with a steady, rapid chipping; in fact, it was clicking like a geiger counter. Flew up to sit in the top of a shrub. Found another, much redder bird on the edge of the "bowl" area.
American Woodcock
One flushed from a thicket right beside me, drifted over my head, then dropped into a stand of bushes about 10 meters in front. I got the glasses on it and could see the odd, trapezoidal head with the eye, blacker than which nothing can be imagined, planted in the upper angle. It held perfectly still, then waddled deeper into the bushes, and I could see the salmon-colored belly.
Eastern Meadowlark
Heard one calling on the east side of the Wet Woods, but by the time I worked my way out and around, it was gone. Then I found a pair of these birds in the empty lot west of the guardhouse. They were sitting in a tree with the sun on their breasts. That rich yellow always provides, for me anyway, a foretaste of the daffodils that will brighten up the garden beds in another week or so.
Eastern Bluebird
Struck out on this species.
A few pleasant surprises. A Wilson's Snipe flushed from the flooded area of the field behind the guardhouse. A single Eastern Towhee in flight. Several Eastern Phoebes and Brown Creepers, a soaring Sharp-shinned Hawk, and the real surprise of the day, by location anyway, a Belted Kingfisher in the field between the parking lot and Wet Woods, maybe attracted by the expansive (and deep) puddles that cover that area after all the recent rain.
