Out and About: Birding and Gardening

Got out and got active today...finally.

Started the day out at Hills Creek State Park with the weekly bird walk sponsored by the Tiadaghton Audubon Society. It was cool (35 degrees at 7:45 AM) but sunny (it got up to 45 degrees by 10:15 AM) and only a mild breeze blowing. We had seven folks show up and had a nice long walk (almost 2 miles) starting at the overflow parking area and going up to the amphitheater and on into the woods at the north end of the lake.

Things were quiet on the lake with only a few ducks, mergansers and grebes on the water. The shoreline was a different matter as there were hordes of warblers (mostly Yellow-rumped) and swallows (mostly Tree Swallows but others as well).

Here's the full list of species we saw today.

Canada Goose
Wood Duck 
Mallard 
Ring-necked Duck
Bufflehead
Common Merganser
Red-breasted Merganser
Pied-billed Grebe
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
Osprey
Cooper's Hawk
Bald Eagle
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Red-bellied Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe
Blue Jay
American Crow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Tree Swallow
Barn Swallow
Black-capped Chickadee

Tufted Titmouse
White-breasted Nuthatch
House Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
Eastern Bluebird
American Robin
Blackburnian Warbler
Palm Warbler
Pine Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Chipping Sparrow
Field Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Northern Cardinal
American Goldfinch

******

After lunch, I grabbed a shovel and went out to turn the gardens over. I worked slow but steadily and finished four of the five garden plots. Almost ever shovel of soil turned over exposed three or four earthworms. I'll have no trouble obtaining bait when I decide to go fishing! 

With the soil turned, I'll let it dry a bit before spend time with the rototiller tomorrow afternoon to break up the clods of clay that  forms much of our soil despite the bags and bags of garden soil and peat moss I've added. I still have to get down to the store to pick up the snap pea, beet and radish seeds as well as onion sets. 

For now, however, I'll relax and watch the Mets do to the Yankees what the Yankees did to the Mets last night.

Monday I take the Tundra to get repaired. Tuesday, I got to the urologist to have the stent removed. Wednesday, If the weather permits, I'll get those seeds and sets in the ground.