It was a busy day for me, and I didn’t have a lot of time to spend outside. However, I did watch the weather have a little trouble figuring out what it wanted to do. It was one of those spring days where it could be sunny and seeming quite warm, and a little later it was rain and a cutting wind. This afternoon while I was teaching, I was impressed by a squall I could see through the window – it made things look like winter for a brief time with heavy clouds and blowing graupel. Fortunately it was short-lived and the sun was back out later this evening.
It was nice to see the sun actually still up in the sky around 8pm as I finished up the last of my calls for the day. Last week I remember being a little surprised (in a good way) that it was still light at 8pm after my calls, but it was too cloudy or the sun had already set, so today was the first time I saw the sun still up after calls.
I didn’t make it down to the park today, but Connor did. He told me there were at least 20 Marbled Godwits (a pretty good-sized flock for here) as well as between 5 and 10 Black Scoters, but not really any other new for the season migrants that he noticed. I got a report yesterday from someone who had observed a Townsend’s Warbler. I also spoke with someone who lives by Swan Lake about whether any Tree Swallows had shown up yet. He said there are not nearly as many chironimid flies coming off the lake as there used to be this time of year, and many birds would eat them (I’ve seen ducks scooping them up before), so perhaps that has something to do with what seems like it might be lesser numbers of swallows around the lake in recent years.