Birds #4 (2020)

There have always been mourning doves nearby - over the brook and up the hill about a half mile away is where I’ve seen them. But until yesterday I don’t remember hearing mourning doves from our yard, or seeing them at our house. But a pair seems to be close, and I’ve been hearing them, and even saw them come to the feeders.

The red-bellied woodpecker is also very active; it’s rare for me to step outside and not here it. Other conspicuous birds are the chickadees, titmice, and goldfinches, as usual. I will occasionally see a white-breasted nuthatch. No sparrows of any kind that I can see or here.

Last night my wife came inside to tell me she thought she was hearing an American woodcock close to the house, and she was right! This male was very close, and we took the girls quietly around to where we were probably within 20 feet of him “peent-ing” in the scrubby, wet brush to the right of the driveway. I don’t think I’ve ever been so close to one apart from the time I found a dead female in the Montague Sand Plains almost a decade ago. After a minute or so of loud PEENT!’s, he took off, and we could see the clear silhouette of his odd round body and head, and his long bill, as he careened into the woods. We waited to see if his dance would bring him back to his same singing spot near to us, but he may have been spooked and did not return.