First a couple pics from home...
Blue Dasher on the boxwood in my front yard.
I watched this Eastern Pondhawk attack and kill a Damselfly from my office window.
I drove a long distance to get to the Jack Pine forest in Michigan where Kirtland's Warblers breed and got to a spot where one was recently reported. I did not expect to get one but even at 8pm it was singing loud and clear and I got some brief but good looks.
Kirtland's Warbler - I expected to re-find this bird and others the next morning but as fate would have it, I heard plenty but never got one to cooperate for a better pic, so this will have to do. That being said I have great pictures from their wintering grounds in the Bahamas.
Lincoln's Sparrow sitting on a young Jack Pine.
I had a day full of teleconferences and there was a ton of mosquitos so it was a bit nerve wracking trying to find birds while swatting away the mozzies and having to contribute to work conversations. So I didn't get to explore much the second day until evening when I lucked into some more good birds. It stayed light until 9pm which worked to my advantage.
Pine Siskin
Female Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Evening Grosbeak! A long overdue lifer.
RB Grosbeak
Porcupine!!!
I wanted to give him a hug so bad but had some reservations.
Cedar Waxwing
Back home on the one day I had in the "office" I was mowing the lawn when I got treated to a nice home patch bird.
Three Mississippi Kites were circling over my house and I managed this one shot before they flew off.
Sigh.... another crazy workweek ahead but I hope to get some birds in NC soon. My kids have a soccer tournament in Winston next weekend so maybe I can go mop up a couple species in the mountains.
Thanks for another enjoyable blog post.
ReplyDelete(1) The Kirtland's Warbler is a fine photograph. I maintain that not all photos have to be a full-frontal-display of every field mark in order to be considered good. This photo of your Kirtland's shows the distinctive field marks, and is a lovely composition.
(2) How wonderful to have three MIKI over your house - and to get a definitive photo! I had one fly within a quarter-mile of my house in Raleigh (Lead Mine Road area) but I didn't see it - a fellow birder did, who was driving home after we had carpooled to Mason Farm. That would have been an impressive Yard Bird (in the Flyover category).
(3) Love the photo of the male Evening Grosbeak. What a nice surprise for you, and congrats on getting a Life Bird. The Evening Grosbeak is one of those "Lost Lifers" of mine; birds I have seen but I don't have on ebird, for I have no definitive records of WHEN I saw them. It was long ago, in the mid-1970s, and my family had a feeder in our backyard in Huntington Bay (Suffolk, NY). It was our first winter feeding birds, and suddenly, a flock of Evening Grosbeaks found us and stayed for days! I didn't know at the time that they were part of a rare irruption, for there was nothing on line at that time. Best thing was word-of-mouth and a cranky "Rare Bird Alert", which was a recorded phone message for the area. So I enjoyed these lovely gold birds alone. And still not on my Life List, for the only places I bird are North Carolina and Florida (when I visit my parents).
The frustrating thing about this "Lost Lifer": a female Evening Grosbeak visited a neighbor's feeder (near Lead Mine Road in Raleigh, Wake, NC) a couple of winters ago, but I didn't find out about it until two weeks later. The neighbor showed me a picture and said "What is this?" That bird stayed for two days. Argh. I told him next time he has something weird at his feeders to text me!
(4) As for work, I am glad you can bird while working (to a point). But I am like most of the world; the only way I can bird at work is to take my on-the-clock lunch hour and go to a local spot (but I cannot be gone longer than an hour). There's no phone-online-teleconference (etc) component of my job. I am grateful for work, but only 4 of the 40 hours can be spent on birding.
(5)We are entering that time of year when the birding is boring, especially in the Piedmont. The birding in the beach area of the Coastal Plain can be good for shorebirds by July, right? June is fun for seeing baby birds in the colonies of terns, and looking for gangly oystercatcher fledglings. But Wake County gets quite hohum. I hope to get to Wrightsville Beach some time this month for the day and fight for a paid parking spot.
Have a great week!
Erla in Raleigh