Yesterday (3/28) my daughter came running in with a flower she had found in the backyard.  It appeared to be a crocus and I asked her to show me where she found it.  The sight of those pale purple flowers filled me with happiness that perhaps Spring proper would soon be upon us.

I went back inside and told Pat I'd like to head over to the Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary and do a little birding.  Pat and Neya wanted to come too, but not for the birdwatching, just for hiking.  So we packed up the stuff we needed and headed out there.

I love Wachusett Meadow.  It's an old farm that became an Audubon Sanctuary some years ago.  It's located in Princeton, MA.

No sooner had we got there than Pat and Neya went to hike up Brown Hill, leaving me to bird all by my lonesome.  Any tension I was feeling slipped away and I immersed myself in my surroundings.  I strained to pick out and follow up on every little snippet of birdsong I heard.  The first songs I recognized were golfinches singing chuwee? and red-winged blackbirds singing onkaree!

It was early yet for spring birds.  The various blackbirds were back, but they were always the first to return anyway.  I noted a curious abundance of american tree sparrows, which I've never seen in great numbers, so I concluded they must be passing through on their migration.  The area by the duck pond which has produced eastern wood pewees without fail did so again, and I enjoyed spending a little time with the pewees.

There were no warblers or swallows about.  Nor did I see any bluebirds.   But it is early yet, so perhaps I'll see bluebirds another time.  I did see some birds that I usually see only on rare occasions, a brown creeper, and a red-breasted nuthatch.  In fact the nuthatch was mostly staying out of sight until I started employing an old birder trick to make birds curious.  I pursed my lips and made a Pshhh Pshhh Pshhh sound.  That worked wonders.  The nuthatch came closer and closer and finally landed on a branch about 3 feet from my face.  That was pretty wonderful, especially since he was the less common sort of nuthatch.

A new trail had been opened that had not been available on all my previous visits to the meadow, which led down to the great blue heron rookery.  When I arrived at the rookery, I was lucky enough to see a pair of wood ducks, a pair of hooded mergansers, and 12 great blue herons.

It was about this time that Patty and Neya caught up with me, and we relaxed an a bench by the rookery to watch the enourmous herons.  The males where staking out nests and hooting at each other.  Those birds are so damn big (wingspan 72 inches) that when they fly you can hear their wings working the air thump thump thump.  Some of the males got rowdy and chased each other when they got too close, hooting all the while.  Patty remarked that they sounded like prehistoric creatures and I had to agree.

All in all it was a very pleasant way to spend a few hours, even if the bird count was a little low (27 species.)  The species sighted were:

1. Common Grackle
2. Red-winged Blackbird
3. American Crow
4. American Robin
5. American Gold Finch
6. American Tree Sparrow
7. Brown-headed Cowbird
8. House Sparrow
9. Eastern Wood Pewee
10. Carolina Wren
11. Black-capped Chickadee
12. Song Sparrow
13. Downy Woodpecker
14. Blue Jay
15. Turkey Vulture
16. Mourning Dove
17. European Starling
18. Red-breasted Nuthatch
19. White-breasted Nuthatch
20. Tufted Titmouse
21. Great Blue Heron
22. Hooded Merganser
23. Wood Duck
24. Brown Creeper
25. House Wren
26. Dark-eyed Junco
27. Canada Goose

Here are some pictures I took while there.