I set my phone on the window sill at dawn, this morning, with the "Merlin" bird i.d. app open. This is what it heard after half an hour or so. My home is surrounded by forest. I'm astonished at the number, because most of these birds I never see, they're in the canopy, or away from dwellings. Some are migrating north, stopping here along the way. This is hardly a complete list, just what app picked up at dawn:

Scarlet tanager

Black & white warbler

Yellow-throated vireo

American redstart

American crow

Ruby-crowned kinglet

Baltimore oriole

Tennessee warbler

Yellow-breasted chat

Mourning dove

Red-wing blackbird

Northern waterthrush

Rose-breasted grosbeak

White-eyed vireo

White-breasted nuthatch

Black-capped chickadee

Common yellow-throat

Downy woodpecker

Blue jay

Northern yellow warbler

Northern house wren

Nashville warbler

American robin

Canada goose

Swainson's thrush

American goldfinch

Northern Perula

White-throated sparrow

Blue-gray gnatcatcher

Yellow-rumbled warbler

Eastern phoebe

Eastern towhee

Dark-eyed junco

Red-bellied woodpecker

Chipping sparrow

Pine warbler

Summer tanager

Carolina chickadee

Brown-headed cowbird

Tufted titmouse

Field sparrow

Northern cardinal 

Carolina wren 

and last, but not least 

Hummingbird. The app didn't pick it up, I saw it.

No owls heard, but they're there. 

If I had my phone app in the meadow to the south of the forest, or in a pasture, or at the pond, I would have heard a different set of birds.

I know the bird population is declining, and why, but I am heartened by this list.

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