If you build it, they will come.

The title is an adapted line from a Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams about Baseball and this farmer that builds a Baseball pitch in his cornfield. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather sit and watch the grass grow than watch Baseball, or any other ball sports for that matter. In this context it's referring to my revised bird feeder setup. I'm hearing and catching a glimpse of the Red-headed Woodpecker and I was hoping it would come down to the feeder setup as it did a couple of years ago. 

Red-headed Woodpecker

A couple of years ago

I altered the feeder setup using a birch log that has been lying under the deck. It has a hollowed out cup in the top and a couple of bored out holes for the bird suet cake I make. Plenty of visitors but no Red-headed Woodpecker, the Red-bellied Woodpecker came a few times in the hour that I was photographing. One of the Flickers made a flyby but didn't land. There were hordes of gray juvenile Starlings wanting feeding from their parents, Grackles, Blue Jays and an assortment of other residents of the backyard.

Blue Jay

Starling (juvenile)

Gray Catbird

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Blue jay

Mourning Dove

Common Grackle

Common Grackle

Another Crappy May Migration

 I really look forward to springtime migration through the yard but this year has continued the run of crappy years, 2023,2024 and now 2025. May 2022 was phenomenal, 19 species of warbler in one day and I photographed 12 of them. This year following reasonable overnight migration there have been plenty of birds in the early morning on some days, none of them stick around for me to photograph at the waterfall in the afternoons when the light is behind me. Last evening I gave it a go and an obliging Common Yellowthroat made it 3 warblers for the year 😞 The summer residents were frequent bathers and I did see a Warbling Vireo but it never dropped down where I could photograph it. 

American Robin

Baltimore Oriole

Common Yellowthroat

Common Yellowthroat

Starling

Gray Catbird

Common Grackle

The Quest for the Red Knot (an epic saga).

 I've had it all planned out for months, the Quest for the Red Knot that is. I/we have tried for at least 3 years and failed miserably to see these lovely shorebirds. In the Delaware Bay around the full moon in May at High Tide the Horseshoe Crabs come ashore to lay their eggs. The Red Knot time their arrival in the Delaware Bay to coincide with the Horseshoe Crab spawning which is their final stopover on their Northward migration from as far away as Tierra del Fuego at the very bottom of South America. Brian and I left PA way before the first Sparrow fart at 2:45AM heading South to Delaware’s Slaughter Beach and Mispillion Inlet at the DuPont Nature Centre. The weather forecast was not great when I had looked everyday leading up to our visit which was timed to arrive at low tide which was just before 6AM. What I had not anticipated was the thick fog advisory in the forecast at 2:15AM when I woke. It wasn't too bad and didn’t affect the 3 hour drive down. Slaughter Beach has many beach access point and we stopped at several of them and while we saw lots of shorebirds Red Knot were not amongst them. While walking along the beach we flipped over as many Horseshoe Crabs that we could and it was heartening to see them making tracks in the sand back towards the incoming tide. 

At one point it started raining so we headed up to the nearby DuPont Nature Centre as we knew they had a partially covered deck where we could shelter and continue on the quest. The drive to the Centre alongside the Cedar Creek was heaving with Short-billed Dowitcher, Ruddy Turnstones, and a variety of Sandpipers. The light was not great in the flat lighting due to the cloud cover and fog but it was what it was. No Red Knot unfortunately. When the short lived shower stopped we headed back down to Slaughter Beach as far as we could go but again no Red Knot. Back to the DuPont Nature Centre which opened at 9AM for another scan for the elusive Red Knot. The lovely young ladies in the Nature Centre came to the rescue by finding a couple of birds for us. OK, it was not exactly what we expected as our first glimpse of the birds was via a remote controlled camera on the breakwater beach about 1/4 of a mile away! We knew they were there though and Brian scanning through the shorebirds soon found more so he was a happy bunny. Many thanks to the young ladies at the DuPont Nature Centre 👍

Leaving there we headed North to Port Mahon where we saw a lots of Cormorants, Gulls and a few assorted Shorebirds and noisy Ospreys. 

Next stop on our return journey was at Bombay Hook where the little midges were the proverbial pain in the ass. When the sun did briefly break through the cloud cover out came the flies so we hurried back to the car. Next stop was at Woodland Beach which was nice but apart from a few Grackles and Red-winged Blackbird pretty fruitless. From there home, after an uneventful drive we got there after a 14 hour day and I was eager to see what my several thousand photos were like. 

Horseshoe Crab

Horseshoe Crab

Short-billed Dowitcher

Short-billed Dowitcher

Ruddy Turnstone

Clapper Rail

Ruddy Turnstone

Short-billed Dowitcher

Short-billed Dowitcher

Eastern Kingbird

Dunlin

Short-billed Dowitcher

Short-billed Dowitcher

Least Sandpiper

Spotted Sandpiper

Great Blue Heron

Great Egret

Snapping Turtle

Marsh Wren

Snapping Turtle

It's been pretty crap so far.

I look forward to May in the yard, some years I'm sitting out there for hours in the sauna blind or freezing my ass off if it's chilly early in the month. Usually there's plenty of activity in the afternoon and early evening when the sun is behind me, I don't tend to bother morning photography due to the shooting direction unless it's bright overcast when I can shoot all day. This year so far has been absolutely awful. The migrating birds are here in the morning as Merlin recordings can show 10-15 species of Warbler nearly every time so long as the weather conditions are right for overnight migration. The afternoon and evening sessions by the waterfall can be awesome but not this year. Nearly halfway through the month and I've only managed to get a Myrtle Warbler and a female Black-throated Blue Warbler. There's still a bit of time but the next few days are rain, rain and more rain.

Blue Jay

Gray Catbird

Female Black-throated Blue Warbler 

Acrobatic female Baltimore Oriole

Common Grackle

Gray Catbird

Gray Squirrel

Not a bad selection this morning.

 As usual this time of year during migration I set the iPhone outside to listen for what’s about in the wooded back yard. Here’s a list of what Merlin is hearing:-

Eastern Bluebird

Nashville Warbler

Yellow Warbler

Black-throated Blue Warbler

Eastern Phoebe

Black-throated Green Warbler

Blackpoll Warbler

Eastern Wood-Pewee

Killdeer

American Goldfinch

House Finch

Eastern Kingbird

Downy Woodpecker

House Sparrow

White-throated Sparrow

Scarlet Tanager

White-eyed Vireo

Northern Flicker

Northern Mockingbird

Brown Thrasher

Red-eyed Vireo

Orchard Oriole

Black-capped Chickadee

Blue Jay

European Starling

Tufted Titmouse

Indigo Bunting

Red-winged Blackbird

Eurasian Collared Dove

White-breasted Nuthatch

Carolina Wren

Wood Thrush

Song Sparrow

Baltimore Oriole

Carolina Chickadee

Cedar Waxwing

Red-bellied Woodpecker

Common Grackle

Mourning Dove

Gray Catbird

Northern Cardinal

American Robin

Great Crested Flycatcher 

That’s all in 52 minutes!

Still doesn’t match May 14th 2022. 

19 Species of Warbler

As I posted this earlier here's a few shots I took this afternoon.

Chipmunk

Indigo Bunting

American Robin

Chipping Sparrow

Northern Flicker

Northern Flicker

Song Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Myrtle Warbler

Myrtle Warbler