Anilorac Dickcissels are nesting

[Kent Fiala <fiala@ipass.net>]

Prompted by Norm's report, I just spent over an hour watching the
Anilorac Farm Dickcissels, one of my favorite species.  It took me a
while to key in to it, but a female is actively carrying nesting
material to a site north of the road.  She often flies back and forth
across the road.  I was able to get my scope on the exact plant she was
going to.  If you have been to the site, you know that there is a
utility line along the north side of the road, from which the male
sings.  The utility pole at the creek has a sort of bracing line that
just goes across the road to a pole on the other side.  The next pole
west has no such bracing line; then next two do.  The nest site is
roughly perpendicular to the road from the unbraced pole (I couldn't
make the exact parallax correction from my vantage point to the west).

I never found the Orchard Oriole nest (maybe done by now) or even a Pin
Oak (was it a Sycamore?) but I did see a female Orchard Oriole making
tireless flights back and forth to someplace way up the road near the
next houses west.

I just can't get over how much being at the Anilorac Farm roadside is
like being back home in my native state.  Dickcissels and Warbling Vireo
nesting within sight of each other?  In the midst of Grasshopper
Sparrows and Meadowlarks?  Not to mention Red-winged Blackbirds, Orchard
Orioles, Barn Swallows, etc.  That's a Nebraska roadside!  (They even
have places named Aksarben there!)  A recent posting on the Nebraska
birding list mentioned "Dickcissel:  48 in a 9-mile stretch between
Dawson and Pawnee City".

-- 
Kent Fiala
Hillsborough, NC