Chirps and Cheeps

Birding seems to be becoming a family affair and I think my 2 youngest are now smitten with the bug! Today we all birded out behind my daughter's home in Angola, where they own a great deal of forest. She had seen a Black-throated Blue Warbler back there while hiking with her husband this past weekend - and afterwards, was inspired to start her own life list.  Yup; she's got it too!

Today, as we hiked through the woods, we didn't see as much as I expected, but we had a several nice sightings which included: a pair of young Eastern Towhees (it was very neat to see the brown, black, orange and white - and does this mean they were both growing into mature males since there was black???), a Red-eyed Vireo, several American Goldfinches, an American Kestrel flying overhead, Red-bellied, Downy, and Hairy Woodpeckers, an Eastern Bluebird, I'm 90% certain I saw a Pine Warbler, Gray Catbirds, Blue Jays, a Song Sparrow, an unidentified Hawk (I'm guessing Cooper's), and again, to my son's great angst, we HEARD a Pileated several times but we couldn't find it.

After I got home, I checked out back to see if I could find the tanager that showed up the other day.  I'm pretty certain he was a Summer Tanager, which would have been a lifer, but I never could confirm it.  He (or she) was quite gold, larger than a warbler, and I got beautiful views as he seemed to follow me around the yard. I kicked myself for hours for having gone out without my camera. When will I learn?!  So today, equipped with my camera, as I searched for the tanager, I was thrilled to spot a couple of warblers: a Chestnut-sided Warbler and either a Nashville or a Connecticut Warbler (this would be a lifer!).  Ya just never know what you're going to find!  No tanager, though :(

If you can help ID the Nashville / Connecticut, I'd be happy to hear from you!