Spring Venture
to the Blue Ridge
Monday, May 24, 2010

Spring is a wonderful time of the year to be in the Blue Ridge and as the days get warmer, spring pushes higher into the mountains and we just follow it slowly to the very mountain tops.

Today (and maybe even this spring) was notable for the cuckoos- seeing or hearing several Yellow-bills and 1 Black-billed. The latter is a very uncommon bird here in the Blue Ridge so seeing one so well was exceptional. Also what was unusual was that a Yellow-bill was in view immediately behind the Black-bill. They were either migrating together or both taking advantage of the same food source. We checked on our nesting Cerulean Warbler again and she was dutifully brooding- either eggs or chicks, we could not tell.  Otherwise we saw a handful of other nesting warblers including Blackburnian, American Redstart and Black-and-white. As the leaves thicken up it gets harder and harder to see the birds and we had to be content with just hearing several species.

Simon Thompson