BIRDS
The Bird Sanctuary was created to provide a welcome to both migrating birds and our year long residents. Over the course of the year, we get a wide variety of songbirds, shore and water birds and even predator birds. Here is just a sampling of the birds that we see at the Bird Sanctuary.
Visit our eBird "hotspot" page to get a more complete list of our avian visitors:
https://ebird.org/hotspot/L3615041
Thanks to our photographers for sharing these bird photos with us.
Common and uncommon visitors
American Goldfinch
Ruby Throated Hummingbird
American Goldfinch
This flashy seed eater loves our Pale Purple Coneflower, thistle and aster seed heads. It is always exciting when we can point it out to tour groups because it is so showy.
Baltimore Oriole
Ruby Throated Hummingbird
American Goldfinch
This newly fledged youngster’s parents make their nest in our large American Elm near the beach house. We are thrilled when we see them return year after year.
Ruby Throated Hummingbird
Ruby Throated Hummingbird
Ruby Throated Hummingbird
We were pleasantly surprised when a hummingbird made its appearance, as we were told that hummingbirds didn’t like the lake front, but eBird records 33 sightings.
American Robin
Common Yellowthroat
Ruby Throated Hummingbird
Robins visit regularly. They especially like flitting between our shrubbery and the leaf litter in our remnant area and the lawned parkland just outside our fence.
Palm Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Common Yellowthroat
Often mistaken for a sparrow by its habit of pecking on the ground, this welcome and fairly common migrating warbler always lets us know who it is by the flick of its tail.
Common Yellowthroat
Common Yellowthroat
Common Yellowthroat
This female warbler lacks the distinctive broad black mask of her mate. The distinctive “witchity-witchity-witchity” song alerts us to the presence of this species as they make their way north.
Eastern Kingbird
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
We love our kingbirds! They come every year posing for us with their distinctive white tail band as they perch on our fence in their daily hunt for flying insects.
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
This little bird is very active flitting from branch to branch as it hunts down small insects. Its white eye ring and long black tail with white side feathers help in identification.
Song Sparrow
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
This common visitor is one of our most conspicuous sparrows. Especially in the spring, it sits out in the open on a shrub branch and sings its heart out.
Red-tailed Hawk
The Red-tailed Hawk occasionally hunts in our sanctuary, looking for mice, voles or rabbit. Its dark belly band on its white underside help in identification if the lighting is not right to see its red tail.
Cedar Waxwing
Yellow-rumped Warbler
This beautiful bird is very social as it usually is seen in small flocks. We plant shrubs with berries such as our dogwoods and sand cherries to hopefully attract their visits.
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
This is one of our most common warblers. It has distinct patches of yellow on its butt, head and the sides of its breast. It flits from branch to branch looking for insects to eat.