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Lots of birds close up and personal! I joined the NSBS field trip to BPI led by Claire Diggins on Friday. Six of us arrived on the island before six pm and did a bit of birding before supper. At about seven pm warblers started popping out of the trees all around the camp. Within ten minutes we saw a dozen species. There were lots of Leach's Storm Petrels at night in burrows all around the camps. Heavy rain and wind did not add many birds on Saturday, but Sunday was glorious. So much bird song and so many birds. A student, Jessie, who is on the island studying Boreal Chickadees, helped us by reporting from the survey which she did each *early *morning while we lingered in our sleeping bags. Claire will do a full report for the Bird Society, but I must mention a few special sightings. There were many of the warblers: Yellow, Common Yellowthroat, Nashville, Black and White, Magnolia, Yellow-rumped, Parula, Chesnut- sided, Blackpoll, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, Palm, Bay-breasted, Ovenbird, Redstart, Canada and a single Blackburnian. The high lights for me personally were five Rose-breasted Grosbeaks (including an inter-acting pair), Catbirds doing distractions, a White breasted Nuthatch (uncommon on the island), many singing Winter Wrens and Fox Sparrows, and a fly-by of a Short-eared Owl (heading toward the Cape). I saw a possible, but not confirmed, Red-bellied Woodpecker. I strongly suspect from the fresh tree holes that a Pileated Woodpecker is resident this spring on BPI, but we could not locate it. We saw a large Muskrat in the daffodil patch, Shrews, Voles, lots of deer and hare skat, and a few butterflies( Elfin , Dusky wing and Skipper species), as well as a number of non-biting flies. There were Cuckoo flowers in the field and Daffodils (at the lighthouse garden) in bloom, and the Amelanchier bushes just beginning to leaf out. We had a wonderful group: Pat McKay, Gary Murray, Jeff White, Burkhard Plache, Jessie and Claire with whom I would not have minded being stranded, but our boatsmen, Lee and Ritchie, arrived early on Monday to get us off before the wind came up. On the way back to Middleton we saw an Eastern Kingbird at Robert's Island, a large number of Barn Swallows at Chebogue and an American Bittern near Bunker's Island in Yarmouth. Remember to sign up early if you are interested in the Labour Day trip. It is fairly rugged, but a lot of fun. Joan
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