April was a hard month for wildlife in Madison County. An unusually warm period in late March caused many flowers and trees to bloom and put out leaves early. Then, in early April, near record cold weather with low temperatures in the high teens froze many of the flowers and new leaves. Many plants did not bloom at all. The bird migrations halted. Warmer weather toward the end of April allowed the migrations to resume, but many of the plants will require weeks to recover.

A male Goldfinch, above, in his full spring breeding plumage is one of the many cheerful birds seen in this season. See Woodland Birds for more colorful songbirds.

A Great Egret pauses along the shore of Shadyside Lake on its way north. It's been several years since we've seen a Great Egret in Madison County. See Unusual Birds for more uncommon, if not rare, birds we've encountered this month.

This male Bluebird pauses from his spring activities for a sip of water. For more of these delightful songbirds, see Eastern Bluebirds.

On a cold, blustery, March-like day in early April, friends called to say that there was an owl under their car. We arrived to find this feisty youngster under the car. We think we've pieced together its story; see Great Horned Owl to learn what happened.

Junior, our father Barred Owl, is up early from his day of resting. He is actively hunting in the late afternoon. We hope that this is because he has several mouths to feed. See Barred Owls for more pictures and a note of concern. For the history of this family of owls, see Barred Owl Family History.

A male Red-bellied Woodpecker is hard at work excavating and enlarging a cavity in a tree. He has been around since late winter, drumming and otherwise staking out a territory. Look at Red-bellied Woodpeckers to see what followed.

One of the first migrating birds we see each spring is the Yellow-rumped Warbler. They are earlier and more numerous than many other species of warbler. See Yellow-rumped Warblers for more pictures of these migrant visitors.

Screen Savers

This month, Birds of Madison County brings you a high resolution picture. Clicking on the image below will cause the corresponding high resolution image to be downloaded to your browser. You may save this image by dragging it to your desktop or using the "SAVE" command on the File menu. This image is large and may require a little time to download, depending on the speed of your Internet connect. The size of the picture in pixels and of the file in bytes is given for the picture.

AOL Users should use Internet Explorer instead of AOL's browser to download this images.

This image is suitable for use as a screen saver or desktop. It may also be printed in large sizes for personal use.

Junior Hunting in the Deep Woods

The father Barred Owl concentrates on searching the ground in the woods late one spring afternoon.

2400 X 1600 pixels; 848K Bytes.

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Award Winning Web Site

We were honored to receive the East Central Indiana Audubon Society's Conservation Education Award for the work done through this web site. We thank the Audubon Society for this recognition and promise to continue our efforts to bring you interesting bird-related pictures.

We hope you enjoy the pictures. Your comments are welcome and may be sent to us at this address:

Tom and Jean Harbron

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Birds of Madison County thanks the Midwest Antique Fruit Jar & Bottle Club and Dick Cole for providing the hosting web site.

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