Bird watchers have their favorites

Even bird enthusiasts, who by definition appreciate all species, have their favorites -- birds they look forward to seeing and hearing year after year.

Like most casual bird watchers, Chris Caster, a former president of the Iowa City Bird Club, favors popular standouts. His top-five list consists of the eastern bluebird, the Baltimore oriole, hummingbirds, blue jays and scarlet tanagers.

For Billy Reiter-Marolf, the coordinator of the second Iowa Breeding Bird Atlas, birds of prey dominate his top five, which are the American kestrel, barred owl, belted kingfisher, green heron and black and white warbler.

Sound as much as sight influences the favorites of Gail Barels, an education specialist at the Linn County Conservation Department. "I love hearing the Baltimore oriole, and the song of the house wren says spring is here," Barels said. Others in her top five are the indigo bunting, the white-throated sparrow and tanagers, both scarlet and summer.

The summer tanager also makes the list of Department of Natural Resources wildlife diversity biologist Bruce Ehresman, along with the bald eagle, the Baltimore oriole, the loggerhead shrike and the state-endangered short-eared owl.

For Iowa City Bird Club member Rick Hollis, a native of Baltimore, the colorful and cheerfully vocal Baltimore oriole and the increasingly common bald eagle make the top-five list along with three species that are seldom seen in Iowa: the black-throated blue warbler, the hooded warbler and the swallow-tailed kite.

Species scarcity is also a factor for Jim Durbin, a longtime leader of the Cedar Rapids Audubon Society, whose top-five list includes mourning and Connecticut warblers "because they are beautiful and hard to find" and both the yellow-billed and black-billed cuckoo "because of the difficulty of seeing them." Durbin also includes the wood thrush because of its song and the scarlet tanager because of its brilliant color.