common yellowthroat by the dumpster

I heard a common yellowthroat when I took my trash out. Looked for it but didn't see it. What a great addition to the dumpster list that would be. The area around the dumpster is a great place for strange sightings for a suburban condo complex: a peregrine chowing down on a pigeon on the grass right in front of the dumpster, a merlin perched on a wire, a coyote (actually that was kind of scary), the usual skunks and bunny rabbits, my personal turkey vulture, mass quantities of blue jays in a flock ... Anyway, I thought it was cool to have a common yellowthroat stop by.

In other news:

Now that birdorable has done her part in advancing the "piping plovers are the cutest thing on the planet" meme, we'll have the proper attire for a march on Washington to save the Endangered Species Act if necessary. Think we can get Barack Obama to wear a "piping plovers are the cutest thing on the planet" t-shirt on the campaign trail?

I Think I Love You Michigan has finished up her season as piping plover steward. Once again I love that her pairs have names. Ours are named after mile markers. Sam and Diane just sounds so much cooler than 0.45 or 3.2, but I get just as attached.

so that's where the seagoing sharpies go!

From time to time over the past few years of plover wardening at Plum Island I've blogged about seeing sharp-shinned hawks turn and fly directly out to sea during the spring and fall migrations. I can't immediately put my fingers on the entries, but I know I've noticed it several times and written about it more than once. One time as I watched this determined little sharpie fly out over the Atlantic and disappear from view I speculated that it must find land in the Isles of Shoals. I was thinking of Star Island, and lo and behold, fabled Mass Audubon blogger and massbird.org poster John Galluzzo has found the answer: Appledore. His Mass Audubon trip saw three sharpies caught at the banding station. Funny, three is about the number I always see leaving Plum Island. I wonder if they're the same ones or they're just representative of the seagoing sharpie population. Anyway now I know that at least some of the sharpies that I see heading straight for the Isles of Shoals from Plum Island actually make it there.

BTW, too bad his group had such an uninspiring visit to PI. He mentions it was midday but does not mention whether it was high tide. Hope the visitors from the south shore make it up here again at low tide and in a summer when we haven't seen so much expletive rain inundating the mud flats. Uh, not that I'm ungrateful for the rain oh ye deities in charge of weather...

Edited to Add: You can hear John taling about this trip on Ray Brown's Talkin Birds show from Sunday: show # 177.

cutest thing on the planet

There may yet be hope that the "piping plovers are the cutest thing on the planet" meme will overtake the "piping plovers taste like chicken" meme. All hail Swarovski for taking all those bloggers to South Beach. I know the intent was to get them to blog about Swarovski optics but the side effect of getting that many well-known bloggers to write about the plight of the piping plover is awesome.

Julie Zickefoose has posted some wonderful photos of piping plovers on South Beach in addition to her fabulous painting. And she's positively inciting piping plover mania!

I already mentioned birdchick's piping plover entries and birdorable's line of piping plover wardrobe items.

Finally, piping plovers are trendy! Yay cuteness!