How the Days Fly!

I cannot believe I have been here for almost a month now! Since my last post I have been to Arizona and back.  I brought my bins with me, but somehow did not have the heart to take them out and use them. My empty feeders hung from their hooks in the yard and I filled only one with the leftover thistle seed I had in the garage. A few hummingbirds were buzzing around.  My son and his wife did attempt to feed them.  I got a brief glimpse of a Rufous hummingbird and a Black-chinned.  The Costa's are still there in force feeding from the Cape Honeysuckle I planted to attract them.  Butterflys flitted all around and I couldn't help thinking that Doug Taron would love to be there right now.

But mostly I was busy.  Too busy to stop and think until the last day when I was there alone in the almost empty house.  Walls stipped bare of artwork. Trees stripped bare of feeders.  After three days of blazing hot weather a storm moved in and the air cooled to 70 degrees in the afternoon!  I changed into my bathing suit and soaked in my hot tub one last time.  It felt so good on my sore muscles. Then I got out, showered and dressed and drove away.  I did not look back.  I did not take even one photograph. I boarded the plane the next day and came back to New England.

 And I started counting birds once again.

I saw an Osprey as I crossed the town green in Colchester. I discovered there are Turkey Vultures hanging out on top of the steeple of the Federated Church.  I have been trying to count birds on a regular basis at the Lion's Pond on Halls Hill Road. I can tell you that there is almost always a Great Blue Heron hanging out there if you want to see one.

I have not seen anymore Life Birds since the Piping PloverI saw in Rhode Island, but today I spotted a new bird for my Connecticut List: a Cooper's Hawk that was flying over Salmon River State Park.  I wanted to go out birding today, and indeed I did, but the rain foiled my plans and soon sent me home where I had a cup of tea and a nap instead. This stormy autumn New England weather makes me moody and wild and creative.  I wrote poetry all evening.  Some of it will show up on my poetry blog, Kathie's Poet Tree.

For those of you who are birders, here is what I saw today in various places:

1. Turkey vulture
2. Cooper's hawk
3. Great Blue Heron
4. Mourning dove
5. American Crow
6. Blue Jay
7. Black-capped chickadee
8. Tufted titmouse
9. White-breasted nuthatch
10. Northern Cardinal
11. House finch
12. House sparrow

And here is an update to the stats I posted last time (changes are in bold):

Life Birds-386 species/387

Total species for the Year-250/261

So far this month 31 species/67

Connecticut Life Birds 94 species/97

Maine Life Birds 85 species/85

Massachusetts Life Birds 18 species/36

New Hampshire Life Birds 8 species/8

Rhode Island Life Birds 2 species/15

Vermont Life Birds 0 species/0

We move into our apartment next week.  I hope to have my own computer up and running by then and I hope to have the photo thing all work out as well.

Come visit me on Kathie's Poet Tree where poetry is happening!

Birding in New England

I am here.

Here in my hometown. Here in New England. When I lived here before I was not the birder I am now, so being here now is like seeing New England with new eyes. For the past few years I have only been able to count birds on my brief summer visits.  Now I am here for at least a year, if not longer.  Now I have a chance to see what I can see.

Upon my arrival here this September my current eBird stats are as follows:

• Life Birds-386 species
• Total species for the Year-250
• So far this month 31 species
• Connecticut Life Birds 94 species
• Maine Life Birds 85 species
• Massachusetts Life Birds 18 species
• New Hampshire Life Birds 8 species
• Rhode Island Life Birds 2 species
• Vermont Life Birds 0 species

Since arriving here in Connecticut I have been counting birds on an almost daily basis at my mother's house in Colchester as well as at the Lion's Pond on Halls Hill road, at Lake Hayward, and various other places around the state.  I have counted birds at the Hotels and restaurants and gas stations in Massachuesetts as well as at Great Meadow NWR in Concord, MA, and Kimball Farms in Carlisle, MA with my blogging friend, Dawn Fine. (What fun we had!)

Today Gus and I took a trip to Misquamicut State Beach in Westerly, RI where I added several species to my Rhode Island Life List.  One of those species was a Piping Plover, my first Life Bird since arriving here. For those of you who don't know what that means, a Life Bird is a bird species that a birder has seen for the first time.  Until today I had never seen a Piping Plover before.

Of course, we took lots of photos and I hope to publish them soon but for now just words and stats will have to do. I will be flying back to AZ on Sunday to supervise the packing of my household stuff. I will return next week and we will be preparing to move into the house we will be renting around the first of October.  As soon as possible after that I hope to have my own computer up and running and shortly after that I hope to be posting photos again.

I have written 2 new poems that will post on Kathie's Poet Tree, if you are interested. Now I am off to enter my newest birding data into eBird and I will post the update as soon as possible. The computer I am using is in my mother's bedroom and she would like to go to bed tonight so I will see how much I can get done before she kicks me out!

Kathie's Birds is About to Begin!

Hello Everyone!

I have arrived safely in Connecticut after birding my way across the United States.  I am still busy getting settled and submitting data to eBird but as of now I have counted birds in at least 27 states!  However, I still have more states to add.  I have only gotten as far as Iowa in submitting my bird counts!

I hope to add photos to this blog soon but so far have not had time to resolve my photo issues. If you are new to my blog, Welcome.  I am in the process of moving from Tucson, AZ back to New England where my husband has transferred for his job. I am currently staying with my mother in CT but we will soon be moving to Massachusetts where we have found an apartment to rent in Andover. I am a person who likes to watch and count birds. As a result, I submit my data to eBird, an online bird data base administered by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Anyone can access the sight to see the results of the bird data submitted.  It is a fun way to track bird populations form all over the globe.

While in AZ I started my first blog called Sycamore Canyon. It is a journal of my 3 years of birding in and around that state. Now that I am moving here I have started Kathie's Birds in an effort to chronicle my new birding adventures.  However, I took and published so many photos for my other blogs that I used up all my photo space with blogger. I will now have to find out how to purchase more space for more photos.  Until then this will be a words only blog.  I hope you like to read! And I hope you will come back and visit me. My writing and visiting will be sporadic until I get settled but I will do my best to respond to your comments and visit your blogs in the meantime.

Once again, welcome to my new blog and you are welcome to visit the other three:

Sycamore Canyon (to see where it all started)

Sycamore Canyon Birds- an online record of birds seen in Sycamore Canyon of Corona de Tucson (a work still in progress)

and Kathie's Poet Tree (where I have fun with art and poetry).