Sunday, May 29, 2011

Female Bobolink photo ID at Charles River Peninsula

Female Bobolink, Charles River Penisula, Needham, MA
At long last, a female in the meadow. What a beautiful sight to finally behold. And two males, holding court and doing fluttery flight songs on separate parts of the field. And as these are bobolinks, as soon as a male approached her off she went into the tree tops. A little bit of harassment from passing red-winged blackbird patrols, but they were mostly concerned about chasing each other, not the bobolinks.

Meanwhile, not a sight or a sound from Savannah sparrows for the last week. Odd....

But yesterday morning (not this morning, regrettably) I was greeting by the utterly weird (if you aren't expecting it) song of a yellow-billed cuckoo.  There were two of them and they were doing that snake-like swaying back and forth thing. I usually don't get to see them more than once or twice a year down at the CRP.