Sat outside a bunch on Sunday and caught a new bird. To my complete surprise, I discovered a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher up in one of our trees. This little guy was sitting right above my head as I was trying to track down where I was hearing that tweasy song it was singing. That makes four new birds in the backyard this summer: a couple of huge American Crows, two House Wrens and a Northern Flicker (no pic yet), none of which are feeder birds. I was able to identify the wren, flicker and the blue-gray gnatcatcher by ear as unfamiliar songs and then using the Merlin app to identify what bird I was hearing. With the house wren and this blue-grey, I was able to get some pictures as it is tough finding birds up high in the heavy foliage this time of the year. I was not as lucky with the much larger northern flicker. It took off before I could bring out my camera. Maybe I will get a shot later this summer. I have a tree that is dying and they like making cavity nests in dead trees. The crows were tricky as they were very quick to spot me with the camera and keep taking off right away. You hear them in the distance now and then, but this summer is the first time they have visited the yard, as far as any of us remember. Anyway, including our new visitors, I now have counted 32 backyard birds in all since Covid got me into birding. I am just totally amazed we have that many birds in the backyard. Pre-Covid, I would have guessed we had three or four species. The diversity for my suburban backyard is amazing.
