For those who list birds, January 1 starts a fresh new list for the new year. What bird will be the first of 2015?
If you live in the suburbs or countryside yours may be a songbird at the feeder — a cardinal, a chickadee, a dark-eyed junco — but where I live in the city the most likely first bird is a European import: a house sparrow, a starling, a pigeon.
Sometimes I make the list better by not looking outside until I think there’s a “good” bird outdoors. This usually requires a little cheating in which I ignore the hordes of foreigners to pick out the one native bird and call it my first.
Birding by ear is more successful at finding natives. Pigeons don’t coo on early January mornings, starlings are silent at dawn, and house sparrows are late risers. This method can give me a First Bird of song sparrow or Carolina wren but the most likely is American crow, cawing as they fly over my neighborhood on their way from the roost.
Today I shouldn’t cheat. I’ll just see what I come up with.
What’s your First Bird of 2015?
(photo by Chuck Tague)
On my first few looks outdoors I saw no birds at all! (It’s cold here: 20 degrees F). Then I saw one bird flying. It was a pigeon!
I braved the cold and went out at 6:41 AM. I was hoping that our local Great Horned Owl was awake and vocalizing. He was!
A female cardinal 🙂
Followed quickly by a male house sparrow. 🙁
Happy New Year Kate!
a pair! of Carolina wrens.
Mockingbird!
Male Cardinal
mine was a dark eyed junco.
Went out, looked up-Red Tailed Hawk, soaring. Jealous.
Mr. And Mrs. Nuthatch, at my feeder.
My first bird of 2015 was a peregrine falcon sitting on top of the Times Square Building in downtown Rochester NY. All the local watchers meet at noon for our annual toast to the Rfalconcam 2015 season. How appropriate to have this be my first bird of the year and perched on the building where the nest is.
Joyce had the Best Bird 🙂
Mine was actually a large flock and I need help with the ID from you folks out there. On our way to a friend’s house, my husband spied a flock of hundreds of small birds flying in undulating waves over Rt. 22. This was in Murrysville above the main intersection (McDonald’s). The flight pattern was as those seen on Youtube and this blog, but usually performed by larger birds–doves, blackbirds, etc. These birds were sparrow size or smaller and there were hundreds. What birds would be around here right now in big flocks and were they migrating perhaps?
Katydid, the small birds sound like finches, perhaps goldfinches.