On a warm, cloudy morning with very gray light, a friend and I were greeted by the songs of a Black-and-white Warbler, an Eastern Phoebe, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet and several Yellow-rumped Warblers when we arrived at the State Botanical Garden in Athens. The gray light made it a little hard to see birds all morning, but it was a very nice walk, rich with birds all along the way, and the perfect way to welcome the spring.<\/p>\n
Eight warbler species were singing \u2013 including Northern Parula, Louisiana Waterthrush, Common Yellowthroat, and Yellow-rumped, Yellow-throated, Pine and Black-and-white Warblers, and one Hooded Warbler. Several White-eyed Vireos sang in shrubby areas along the river, and at least one Blue-gray Gnatcatcher called a spritely spee-spee<\/em>.<\/p>\n Two brightly colorful Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers went round and round the trunk of a tree just inside the woods, one chasing the other, for several minutes \u2013 fun to watch. A wide-eyed and watchful Hermit Thrush came out from under a shrub to forage with White-throated Sparrows. A Ruby-crowned Kinglet flitted from branch to branch in a small tree, very close by. Two Great Blue Herons flew over, slowly, majestically. Northern Rough-winged Swallows swept low over the open garden areas. A Pileated Woodpecker trumpeted its call. And an amazing number of Cedar Waxwings flocked almost everywhere.<\/p>\n In the beaver pond area, we caught a glimpse of the bright yellow throat and black mask of a Common Yellowthroat that was singing and singing from a tangle of shrubs. A Swamp Sparrow came out to walk along a strip of dry mud. A Louisiana Waterthrush flew directly over us, low and singing, and a little further on, we watched another inspecting tree roots along the banks of a creek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On a warm, cloudy morning with very gray light, a friend and I were greeted by the songs of a Black-and-white Warbler, an Eastern Phoebe, a Ruby-crowned Kinglet and several Yellow-rumped Warblers when we arrived at the State Botanical Garden in Athens. The gray light made it a little hard to see birds all morning, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1200"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1202,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200\/revisions\/1202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/birdingnotes.sigridsanders.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}