September is one of my favorite time to go birding. While I never know what birds I will see, I rarely am disappointed in terms of seeing great variety. Yesterday afternoon, I hiked over to find Hoot (unsuccessfully), but found well over 30 American Restarts flitting around the pine grove where my owns often hang out. In addition, there were good numbers of other migrating warblers. My key takeaway … get out there and enjoy the migration.

One of my rules during migration is generally not to look for specific kinds of birds, but to pick known good birding habitat and enjoy the hit parade. This morning in my own yard it was non stop Blue Jays. At times I could see well over 20 jays at once … my feeders were a big hit.

Two days ago I drove over to Sax-Zim Bog at sunrise. The numbers of American Kestrels was amazing, and I had an extremely rare sighting … a Red Headed Woodpecker. The other staff / naturalists for the Friends of Sax-Zim Bog only knew of one other Red Head ever being seen in the Bog area. We are north of their preferred habitat.

I don’t normally take videos of my own feeders, but this morning’s blue demanded an exception! (video link for email subscribers)