This is a retrospective of the birds I saw in mid and late spring 2023 in one of my favorite places, Plum Island, Massachusetts, the seven-mile-long barrier island on Massachusetts’ North Shore. Most of Plum Island is part of Parker River National Wildlife Refuge (PRNWR), a critically important area for hundreds of species of birds and other wildlife. For more information about Plum Island and PRNWR, see the Daily Bucket I posted in November 2021 about them, here.
This past winter and early spring it seemed to me that there were far fewer birds than usual on Plum Island and the North Shore in general. Snowy Egrets were about a month late arriving, and there still aren’t as many Snowy or Great Egrets as I’m used to seeing there in spring and summer. And warbler migration barely seemed to happen. However, around mid-May I began to see more birds, including more Baltimore Orioles than I’ve seen in my entire life before, and even more numerous (as expected) Yellow Warblers, which have been serenading the island with their “sweet-sweet-sweet oh-so-sweet” song for months now. Also countless Gray Catbirds, which are sweeter than Yellow Warblers when it comes to letting you see them! They like to hop out in front of you and sing. The following are some of the pics and videos I took on Plum Island this May and June.
A short video I took of two Eastern Kingbirds squabbling in a tree next to the Refuge road...
50-second video I took of a Baltimore Oriole (and moon), one of at least six that I saw that same evening...
Since I never posted this video last spring...this is one of my favorite birds which I sadly didn’t see on Plum Island this spring (I did see one on Cape Ann), a Palm Warbler (16 second video, taken at sunset)...
Your turn: what birds have you been seeing or hearing lately?