Yesterday I found two new arrivals on my local patch. One was a Swamp Sparrow, a species that I had seen in Cape May earlier but that I had not seen locally this year. Unlike the vociferous Song Sparrows, this bird did not sing, but its rich browns and pleasing grays were a welcome sight.
The second came as I was leaving the patch. I glanced up, following the flight patch of a couple finches, and saw three large, dark birds flying in formation. I expected them to be Double-crested Cormorants since I had already seen them on the river, but I raised my binoculars anyway to make sure. When I did, I saw that the birds had the wrong shape. Instead of the stout head and neck and heavy bill of a cormorant, these birds had the thin neck and elegantly decurved bill of a Glossy Ibis. So Glossy Ibis becomes the latest addition to my Middlesex life list.
The other birds I saw were all ones that I had seen at the park already this week, in more or less the same numbers as before. One nice sighting was a Ruby-crowned Kinglet foraging among the leaf buds opening on a crabapple tree. I also enjoyed hearing Yellow-rumped Warblers sing, a sound I have not heard since last May.
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