May I Ask You Something..?

 ...if a Blackpoll Warbler assents in a forest and nobody sees it, does it make a sound? A-si-si-si-si-si ! Obviously.

May is the best month of the year for birding. Everyone knows this. Residents are setting up their homesteads, migrants are passing through en masse, and it is pleasant to be outside. In fact, it's not just the birds in May; it's everything. Bird, bug, and bloom...the natural world swells with its infinite life cycles. Look to the canopies and the skies for the birds, yes, but also watch what might be under foot.

The Goldboro Wasterwater Ponds are in their prime in May. There Wood Ducks popping out of every reedy nook and cattail cranny while Ibis streak overhead, and shorebirds abound that one would be hard-pressed to find most anywhere else in the county.  

Adjacent from the muddy lagoons, the liminal fields host Turkey, Kingbirds, icterids, Larks, and no doubt some Grasshopper Sparrows I still need to pick up for the county list. Also those darn Bobwhites. And Nighthawks. Gah there is much to enjoy, and much to do.

The rich undergrowth and foliage around the lagoons hosts all manner of passerine, both resident breeders and interlopers. Some prefer to look at you weirdly.

White-eyed Vireo

Some prefer to look weird themselves. 

1/2 Summer Tanager

And some prefer not to look at you at all

There have been some truly excellent finds this spring at the GWWTP, most all of them by Ann "See 'em All" Stinely (currently crushing me in Wayne County and the overall leader for species seen in NC this year), including Black-billed Cuckoo and Least Tern, as well as many excellent Warblers.

Believe it or not, below is a diagnostic shot of a Blackpoll Warbler (new county bird!). Bonus points if you can tell why in the comment (also, binocular views were very good, not just going on a photo here).

For filling out the county year list, Cliffs of the Neuse and GWWTP have still been aces, but truth be told I have been most enjoying my time birding a local patch near home that I will profile soon, a little gem of semi-legal accessibility and habitat in a rural desert of agriculture (not bashing, but poor for species diversity). Alas, one thing it does not, and will not have, is mudflats. Gotta enjoy those Plovers when I can.

Where do you stand in the heated rivalry, Team Sandpiper or Team Plover??? Do you prefer the tactile, elongated feedings habits of the pipers, or the stout sturdy sprints of the plovers? Do you prefer collars and neck bands or mottled mantles and streaky breasts? Fortunately at the GWWTP you can have it all. 

Life is a series of greetings and partings, of comings and goings, sunrises and sunsets. Would that we hold all the beautiful inputs and imprints of this past month on our souls, that we live every day like it's middle of May.