Does any other bird sound enough like a Grasshopper Sparrow to confuse the two? I was in a grassy field near Lake Lowell and the song was very close to me, but I had no binoculars. Only my App to confirm sound. Thx… Jonathan
Just had a flyby of 2 Tree Swallows & a pr of Sandhill Cranes have been calling all morning from down by the Snake River, below home. Evening Grosbeaks are still coming to the feeders.
Also, of note, first Least Chipmunk of season is below feeder, picking out spilled black oil sunflower seeds.
Haven’t seen any sign of Salmonellosis at my location. So, refilled feeders yest with black oil sunflower seeds for first time in 2 months. This AM, 6 Evening Grosbeaks were busy eating seeds! First I’ve seen of them since a 2 wk irruption last Fall.
Confession time! While I normally do exactly what Cheryl said, this time I decided to “cheat.” I carried a pen and a piece of paper and wrote down the birds 5 and 10 at a time. When I did a longer ride last week, I found myself enjoying the birds less as I approached 50 (too much thinking involved). Since I was hoping for a 50+ day. I decided to cheat. But on “normal” rides I will continue to exercise my brain. As most of you know, it was my therapy to cure my “chemo-brain,” after lymphoma. Now if there was only something to cure my “dumbs**t brain.”
I tried doing the memory thing for a given place. Didn’t work too well for me, too many birds at some of the places I get to. And being badly scatter-brained nowadays, why I still use pencil and paper as I go, allows me to put notes on my ebird postings later… and I can check for any place corrections. Don’t care for the ebird app, takes too long when I can better use the time to observe and appreciate the time and place about me. Plus you can’t seem to engage the maps and correct for Hotspots one is at.
Do miss your poetic endeavors here on some postings here, Tom. Will there be any more in the near future?
Agree with Cheryl that it’s very impressive brain work – you set a great example 😊
Reporting that we had a Spotted Towhee in our yard (near you) March 28th – a first for our (literal) yard list though I spotted one nearby years ago- oddly at rest (briefly) in the street. Do we have a theme of parallelism going here, ya think?
Also agree with Cheryl – love your reports and keep it up, please!
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