Birdwalk Highlights for 6/27: Royal River Park, Yarmouth.

One of our favorite mid-summer birdwalk destinations, this unassuming town park just always produces a pleasant amount of birds, good numbers of some of our common summer denizens, and always a surprise or two. Today was no different, as the wide edges allow our fairly large groups opportunity to see and study birds.

And as is often the case in mid-summer, it is the careful observation of bird behavior that can be the most rewarding. Two of the highlights today were related to nesting: there were CHIMNEY SWIFTS breaking off twigs for their nest from a tall, dead tree (at least 4 of the dozen or so swifts today were observed doing this), and the 4-6 NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOWS nesting under the East Elm Street bridge, allowing us the unique experience of watching them passing below us! But I think the observation of the day was at the very end. As we watched an EASTERN KINGBIRD catch a large bee and begin to "tenderize" it on a branch, a CEDAR WAXWING sided up to it and then lunged at the kingbird! The kingbird, being a kingbird, barely flinched, and the waxwing flew off. Was the waxwing desperate for courtship feeding or was it an attempt at kleptoparasitism? I have never observed this behavior from a waxwing, so it was really fascinating and fun to ruminate about.

More expected, there were ample numbers and observations of common "edge" species: 16 GRAY CATBIRDS, 13 each of NORTHERN YELLOW WARBLER and AMERICAN REDSTART including lots of actively foraging pairs of each, 9 SONG SPARROWS and AMERICAN ROBINS, 6 NORTHERN CARDINALS, and 5 RED-EYED VIREOS.

Other observations included 29 MALLARDS with one AMERICAN BLACK DUCK, 5 CANADA GEESE, 2 each of RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER and EASTERN WARBLING VIREO, and one each of CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER, EASTERN PHOEBE, BROAD-WINGED HAWK, PINE WARBLER, DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT, and BALTIMORE ORIOLE.