Bugs and Birds

Fly fishers and birders have a lot in common. One thing is that we go on vacations, or enjoy days, when there are an abundance of bugs around. Earlier this week in Cleveland we had one of those days. Since I couldn’t be fishing, I made the most of birding. It was one of those days in May when we get an enormous hatch of insects out of Lake Erie. Not being an entomologist I’m not sure what the creatures are—other than abundant. People call them everything—some names not suitable for a family blog.
They’re called midges, muckleheads and pains-in-the-butt. Birds call them lunch. My office window was covered with them so I knew the birding would be good. At noontime I headed to a nearby green space. I stood in one spot and watched one tree. Along with the usual suspects, I had 16 other species of birds. Notable among these was a single brown thrasher, 41 blackpoll warblers, two black-throated blue warblers, three chestnut-sided warblers, three veerys, two hermit thrushes, seven Baltimore orioles, two orchard orioles, six ovenbirds and more. Sorry no partridge, but then it was a sycamore, not a pear tree.