Taking advantage of a break in our spring rain, I headed over to the Columbia Audubon Nature Sanctuary, which connects with the adjacent Bonnie View Nature Preserve, in western Columbia. After all, late April is a great time to look for migrant and summer songbirds and there is no better habitat in central Missouri for observing those species.
Despite the cool, cloudy weather and a soggy landscape, my visit was rewarded. While robins and cardinals were most abundant and conspicuous, I encountered an excellent diversity of songbirds in the forest, among the open woodlands and on the scenic meadows. These included indigo buntings, gray catbirds, Nashville, yellow and Tennessee warblers, blue-gray gnatcatchers, ruby-crowned kinglets, eastern phoebes and a great crested flycatcher, joined by many common permanent residents. Other highlights included two fuzzy, great-horned owlets, a barred owl and a sedge wren.
Veteran birders know that the spring songbird season peaks in late April as summer songbirds arrive, a few winter songbirds have yet to depart and migrant songbirds (especially warblers) are passing through, greatly augmenting the avian diversity in our parks, neighborhoods and nature preserves. This morning's cool, cloudy weather and wet landscape may not be favored by birders but it certainly did not dampen the bird activity.
