Date: 4/12/25 12:53 pm From: Ian MacGregor <00000489141846bd-dmarc-request...> Subject: A Bittersweet Morning
I got up early and went to Hobbes. I started hiking the Sinking Stream trail about an hour before sunrise. I looked at Merlin and it was claiming to have heard a whip-poor-will. About 15 minutes later I too heard one, but I could not hear the entire song. It called about half dozen times, and Merlin was highlight Eastern Whip-poor-will each time. I could tell it was not a chuck-wills-widow, and the guttural tone suggested goatsucker. This and Michael Pruitt hearing three there this morning this month on two occasions made me 100% confident it was indeed an Eastern Whip-poor-will. But not a very satisfactory life bird
I went back to the cat and waited until 10 minutes after the sun was supposed to rise. It would be about thirty minutes more before it was visible. I started to walk the Van Winkle Trail. Almost as sooon as I got out of the car, a bird with short, and to me overly-broad wings, flew by. It had no, noticeable tail. Size, shape, and broad wings, make it a Screech Owl. That’s all I saw of the bird. I was about 90% sure I heard one a couple of years ago, but I removed it from my life list. So this bird was a lifer. It would have been nice to see it better.
