Today marks the first time I’ve gone birding on my own. I didn’t go on Thursday morning with Courtney like I usually do because she was busy finishing up a paper and I had some tests to study for. This left me going a whole week without any birding, and I was surprised how much I missed it. I had some research to do in the library after lunch, so, in with Fargo’s laptop and some papers, I packed my binoculars into my book bag “just in case.” As I suspected, the calls of the birds were irresistible, so I wandered off behind the pond instead of going to the library.

Birding without someone that knows what they’re doing is hard. I saw several kinds of birds, but was not able to identify as many as I would have liked. Just behind the pond, I saw a couple of Mocking Birds. They were easy enough to identify, but they’re all over campus. As I neared the edge of campus, I saw several birds fly over the fence to the trees on the other side. I think they were Flickers. They flew like woodpeckers, crawled on the tree like woodpeckers, and they were large like a Flicker. When I got to the library, I looked them up on WhatBird and they seemed to match. My attention was then drawn to activity in the trees on the LETU side of the fence. I’m still not quite sure what they were, but I’d guess Pine Warblers. They had bright yellow bellies with some gray mixed in, their wings were black with white tips, and the picture on WhatBird looked close. However, they didn’t seem quite like the ones I’ve seen with Courtney before and they weren’t doing their usual call. I continued on, closer to the societies and saw a few trees full of what I’m guessing were Chipping Sparrows. They were also refusing to let me identify them by their call, but they were small, black and brown. WhatBird’s description seemed to match.

Somewhat frustrated at my lack of identification skills, but still glad I’d had some good time away from computers and studies, I headed back toward the library. On the way, I saw a turkey vulture circling overhead. Just before I entered the library, a cardinal flew from one tree to another. I didn’t see anything more than a streak of red, but it was still a treat, cardinals look really neat.