First grackle megaflock

Mixed flock of blackbirds in late fall last year (2010), post-corn-harvest. This year's corn is still green.

I hereby record that the first megaflock* of common grackles this year arrived at my Warren County home in the pre-dusk hours of September 4th. They squeaked and creaked and occupied every ash, hickory, and sycamore branch along a half-kilometer stretch of the Musconetcong River. Then they departed, flying west-ish in the typical (and typically impressive) never-ending-river-of-birds. It would be fascinating to have a map of the wanderings of these bird-herds. Maybe ebird has this in their power?

They apparently wander this way all winter, and farther north than NJ, too. Here is a photo of another megaflock feeding on my lawn when I lived in Orange County, NY (taken December 2009).

Megaflock of grackles in Goshen, Orange County, NY, December 2009.

*I made up the word, but it fits...

Wanderers

 

A Carolina Chickadee, where it belongs - Ocean County, NJ. I heard a Carolina-type song in Warren County today - usually solid "Black-capped" country.

The birds are coming to me lately.

I haven't had a chance to do much birding around my property this summer, but now I keep seeing "good" species while poking around in the yard, going about my business. Post-breeding wanderers, I assume.

A blue-gray gnatcatcher feeding fledglings in the rose-of-sharon and on my garden fence (they move easily through 1-inch chicken wire holes, incidentally). A family of great-crested flycatchers making sallies out over the yard. A blue-winged warbler gleaning for caterpillars between an indifferent resident pair of bluebirds. 

But today was the best one. A Carolina chickadee singing from the old apple tree. That is, at least a chickadee was singing a Carolina-type song. Here in Warren County, NJ (Mansfield Twp), we are a good 30 miles or so from the boundary between northern Black-capped and southern Carolina chickadees. Complicating things is the fact that they hybridize, and that they can learn the "wrong" song near the hybridization zone. But, I grew up in Hunterdon County, 30 minutes to the south, and I've never heard a Carolina song there. So this was an interesting treat either way...even if it could be an evil omen of a changing climate?