Birds Around the Cabin

Wild Turkeys are weird birds, I think. Sometimes they act remarkably canny and smart. The next time they seem dumber than dirt. This bird falls into the later category. I snapped its photo as it was slowly ambling through Roundtop, in the middle of a wedding party this past Saturday afternoon. Kids running with balloons were just a few yards away. As I said, weird.

Anyway, this bird marked the 49th species of bird I’ve seen at Roundtop this month. For the year I’ve seen 64 species so far. I spent most of the non-raining, non-thunderstorming part of my holiday weekend trying to find species #50 for May, simply because last May I also found 49 species, and I’d like to best that total. So far, I still haven’t found that 50th species but I still have a few more days to go. It really shouldn’t be that difficult, but one of the things that keeps me interested in birding is that things (and birds) that shouldn’t be difficult often are.

Despite the fact I didn’t get my 50th May species, I had several good sightings, in addition to this rather dazed-looking turkey. To me, the most intriguing was the sighting of a male and a female rose-breasted grosbeak. Typically, these birds don’t nest much in this area, preferring more northerly sites. But here it is the end of May, and these two were hanging around the cabin all weekend. The male has been filling the woods with his distinctive, loud call and assorted chirps virtually every time I stepped outside. They spent most of the time flying back and forth from one side of the driveway to the other. Several times, the male was singing just a few feet above my head. I haven’t seen them carrying any nesting material but they sure have been fun to watch. And who knows, maybe they will nest here. How cool would that be?