After months of hoping for visitors to my hummingbird feeders, and seeing only one Monarch butterfly at a time, I had a few hummingbirds visiting and saw lots of Monarchs over the Labor Day weekend. The hummers continued up until Monday. The winds have changed again. I hope to see more, but even if I don’t, it was wonderful to enjoy their visits and get a few photographs at home.
Outside the peace of home, my life seems to be speeding by at a breakneck pace lately, so this post will be brief, but I wanted to share a few end-of-summer moments.
Of course, no sooner did summer seem to be coming to an end with a spell of delightfully cool days, than we were thrown back into hot and humid once again for the coming days, so summer doesn’t feel quite done yet. But oh my, how the days are rapidly diminishing in length…
Monarch on Mistflower
Check out this Big Black Wasp
The Goldfinches are back. Looking a little scruffy, but it’s so nice to see them again and hear their cheery contact calls.
I bought a new suet feeder for the woodpeckers to keep up with the demand and then one day a squirrel figured out how to open it, so now twist ties are the workable solution to suet cake theft. I’ve noticed that if more than one Downy shows up at a time, the “intruder” gets chased away.
A few more photos from the yard…
Snow on the Mountain (Euphorbia marginata) showed up by itself a few years ago but did not come back. So I scattered a few seeds in one spot and now I have a nice little group. I’ll be interested to see if it reseeds itself.A young House FinchA young male Ruby-throat…
My coming weekend is going to be very busy so I don’t know when I’ll get back to the trip photographs, but it will happen. My dove Dudlee is saying, “Who-Who” to that thought. I’m probably misinterpreting her comment as encouragement.
Murmuration of Semipalmated Sandpipers and Plovers
This will be a brief post as I am still unpacking a few things from my trip to New Brunswick and Grand Manan. As good as it is to be home, part of me will remain in these vast, incredible vistas for a long time to come.
Our excellent guides Jared and Sarah timed our arrival at Kelly’s Beach in Kouchibouguac National Park to coincide with low tide and a massive concentration of shorebirds. The migratory spectacle at this time of year is quite phenomenal. Birds are fattening up for a long flight to their southern wintering grounds. They gather, forage and rest at low tide. Specifically, we were watching huge flocks of Semipalmated Sandpipers and Semipalmated Plovers. Let’s see, that’s a “fling” of sandpipers and a “congregation” of plovers. I think the experts estimated the ratio was about 3:1 sandpipers to plovers. It’s easiest to pick out the Semipalmated Plovers in the photo just below. When we first arrived we had several Black-Bellied Plovers. We also had some Least Sandpipers and at least (sorry) one or two White-Rumped Sandpipers.
The falcons are hip to this event as well, and periodically they disrupted the shorebirds, who broke into amazingly dizzying choreographies of murmurations.
It’s impossible to capture the enormity of this spectacle, but it was also impossible to resist the temptation to try. If you click on the images below maybe you will get an idea of what we were witnessing for what seemed like forever, as fleeting as it was. No sooner would one flock settle down than another from a more distant location was startled by something and it began all over again as that flock moved toward us.
A small section of one flock photo.An even smaller section.
There were Peregrine Falcons and even a Merlin or two. I managed a few photos of the Peregrines.
Peregrine Falcon
Four days later, on Grand Manan, a couple of us went out with Jared at high tide early in the morning to see if we could find a Nelson’s Sparrow. We had tried for the bird the previous day but it was difficult to get one to show itself well in the vast salt marsh. The strategy behind getting up early for high tide is that the birds have to move in closer to higher land, and that might make the Nelson’s easier to see. Jared’s strategy worked. We got better looks than these photographs, but I am pleased with the images in that you can recognize the bird and the surroundings show off its beautiful coloration. We get Nelson’s around here from time to time and I have seen it before, but never very well, so now I feel like I know this bird.
Nelson’s Sparrow
Sunrise at high tide.Semipalmated Sandpipers coming in for a landing.
I will be back with lots more from this trip, and I still have some images left from the Texas trip in April. Not to mention several forays from what now seems like a very brief summer. Some day I will have time for this! In the meantime, I hope you are having a safe and pleasant weekend, wherever you are, and especially I wish those of you in the potential path of Dorian ultimate safety and comfort in love.
I have to keep updating this post because I can’t seem to finish it… I decided to stay home last Sunday. Originally I was going birding, but I had been to the Portage Saturday morning and subsequently needed two naps to get through the rest of the day, so I decided to stay home instead and see what I could get done around the house. I have only one more weekend before I travel. As much as I look forward to my trip, I start to feel like I never want to leave my crazy house.
So after feeding the birds and having breakfast, I grabbed the camera to go out into the yard, with the idea I would do some weeding and cleanup but have the option of taking some pictures if I felt like it. No sooner did I step out onto the back porch than I saw the only bird in the yard. It’s that time of year again, when the young Cooper’s Hawks come and sit in the middle of the yard, thinking their breakfast will come to them.
Certainly if I sit on the feeder pole…
He wasn’t there long. He flew to sit in the redwood tree for a moment but it was too dark already shooting through the window and the screen to capture a decent picture of him there. Then something caught his attention and he left. I just felt lucky to have happened upon him in that moment.
Is there another squirrel I can’t see or is that the same squirrel’s tail hanging all the way down below the wires?Utility lines were a popular place to sit and wait for me to quit taking pictures.
The most numerous birds in the yard at that time were House Finches.
I was impressed with this squirrel’s technique. He can actually hang on the peanut feeder and eat a peanut at the same time.
The yard is in bloom, finally, after all that rain that made everything grow to towering heights. As long as the pollinators seem to be happy with it…
Wild senna…
I couldn’t take enough pictures of this Tiger Swallowtail enjoying the Echinacea Forest.
Mother and child House Sparrows
Ironweed
Goldenrod, don’t ask me which one!
Just as the first sunflowers are consumed, new ones bloom.
With any luck I will be back once more before I take off for my next adventure, but I’m making no promises. There were things I could have gotten done ahead of time, I suppose, but other real-time priorities seemed to obliterate the best of intentions. And why those thoughts of hating to leave my birds, missing the first week of choir or feeling guilty about flying start creeping in I’ll never know. It’s too late to turn back! Ambivalence won’t cut it anymore, I have to get ready! And I am looking forward to this trip. 🙂
Two weekends ago I went to McGinnis Slough. A bit later than I’d planned… weekends seem to be getting away from me, and I just can’t seem to get up and out very early. I arrived at the slough around 8:30 AM, so it was still cool. The moment I got out of the car everything else became irrelevant when I saw two Sandhill Cranes standing in the overlook area that juts out toward the slough from the parking lot. I didn’t want to disturb them, so as I started to walk toward the south end, I took pictures at a considerable distance. But later after they had left, I found the two feathers in the grass, above. I arranged the feathers a bit to photograph them and left them there. Once upon a time I collected a feather or two, but I have never done anything purposeful with them and it’s frustrating to inadvertently find them later collecting dust or stuck inside a book or…
Below is what the slough looked like. Overgrown and marshy. Very different from the flooded trails of my last visit.
Walking away from the Sandhills, there were some Wood Ducks at the south end.
I’m always happy to see a Monarch Butterfly, but then am saddened by the fact that I hardly ever see more than one anymore, anywhere.
There were plenty of dragonflies. Blue Dashers are still plentiful and posing this summer.
Below is an Eastern Pondhawk. I don’t think I’ve photographed one before.
Red-Winged Blackbirds are still a presence everywhere.
And it was nice to see Baltimore Orioles.
Some more Red-Wingeds. Those red epaulets really stand out in flight.
(Female RWBL)
Red-Tailed Hawks. Flying together…chased by blackbirds…soaring.
And there were a few Blue Jays who were not camera-shy for a change. This one seemed to think the picnic table might have some promise.
American Goldfinches, so plentiful earlier in the year, are a bit scarce, but I attribute that to the fact that they are late breeders and likely consumed by nesting duties.
American Goldfinch (female)
I was unable to capture a dragonfly on these roses but they turned out to be attractive by themselves.
A glimpse of a Green Heron…
and a Great Egret. There were a few Great Blue Herons but they were too far away.
So that’s my little report from McGinnis. I’ll try to go back there before I leave for my trip to New Brunswick and Grand Manan in just a few weeks. But I’m still not done with the Texas trip! And I have to find a new bird care person for the indoor crowd, which is not so easy these days. Sigh.
I wasn’t too excited about the photographs I found on my laptop for the day after the big hike, but then when I checked my phone I remembered why there were so few. If my memory serves me correctly, we woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of hail hitting the roof and then when we set out for a short local trek before taking vehicles to other trails, finding hail piled up almost a foot high on the gravel road.
So it looks like it was a cloudy, iffy day weather-wise, and eventually we had hail again. Only this time we were safe inside the vehicles.
The video and these images are from the cell phone. A dramatic landscape enhanced by weather.
Two birds willingly posed within range that day: the Audubon’s Yellow-Rumped Warbler at the top of the page and this lovely Say’s Phoebe.
But also ubiquitous on the entire trip were Bell’s Vireos. We didn’t always see them but we definitely heard them every day.
Bell’s Vireo
More of the Say’s Phoebe
A distant Yellow-Breasted Chat
Dark, cloudy and distant pictures of two hummingbirds (Lucifer on the upper left and middle and Broad-Tailed below, right) and a Varied Bunting in between them.
We visited this amazing fossil discovery exhibit which is in Big Bend National Park.
Some flora which I might be able to identify if I could just find the laminated checklist of Big Bend wildflowers I purchased at the Visitors Center. Looking through even more pictures on the internet makes it tempting to revisit this area some day. I want to come back as a plant fanatic.
Not sure who this is either…A distant but very cooperative Loggerhead Shrike.Black-Chinned SparrowThis was the vista behind the Bell’s Vireo above.
More views of the Audubon’s Warbler
A Rock Squirrel and his rock.
There are four more days of photographs from the Southwest Texas trip to decipher. Then it’s onward to rejuvenate or replace the travel laptop before I take it on another adventure coming up next month!
The third day of my trip to Big Bend National Park, the group started the hike up the mountain trail to Boot Canyon. In spite of the fact that my right knee issues had slowed me down, I intended to do the entire hike, which was advertised as a ten-hour expedition up and back, but I’m sure it took me longer than that! The decision whether to continue down to Boot Springs was at the halfway mark with the spectacular view of the “Boot”, and I figured I wasn’t coming back to do this again, so the only way to go was onward.
The object of what is always lovingly referred to as a “forced march” in birding was to see the elusive Colima Warbler. As it turns out, those of us who made the trip to Boot Canyon saw four or five of these individuals, but I don’t remember encountering any on the way up to the decision point, so my election to go the entire hike was fortuitous.
Chisos Basin, with the lodge in distant view…
The trail to here…
Boot Canyon
On the way, we encountered this Black-Crested Titmouse, a species seen almost on the entire trip, but nevertheless a bit challenging to capture, so I was glad to have a picture of this individual.
Black-Crested Titmouse
One thing I discovered, though, on this hike, was that my decision to take the biggest lens may not have been wise. Actually, the Tamron lens barely survived the trip: by the end, the rubber gasket on the focus wheel was loose to the point where I could barely take a picture. I ordered a replacement, but I haven’t attached it yet. Instead, ever since I got back from the trip I’ve been using my Canon 100-400mm lens and, combined with my best camera, I think this is the way to go, so I’m reluctant to pick up the Tamron again although I’m sure I will before I decide what its ultimate fate will be.
But the biggest problem on this particular day was that somehow, on the way down to Boot Springs, my settings on the camera changed, and I was oblivious to the fact that I was shooting on “M” which I guess is the manual setting I never use, until long after the stop at Boot Springs where we encountered all these delightful warblers availing themselves of the water feature. In effect I had nice photographs of some rocks because they required no attention to shutter speed. So there I was in heaven at least looking at these amazingly beautiful birds, but not capturing them entirely with the camera. I am surprised that I was able to salvage the photographs you see here, which are certainly not of high quality but at least you can see what the birds look like. Something to learn from an exhausting hike situation. Be Over-Prepared. Or don’t forget to check your camera settings after: adjusting your pack, tying your boots, grabbing your water…
Townsend’s Warbler
Wilson’s Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Anyway, in addition to the Colima, the Lucy’s and the Hermit were lifers for me.
Lucy’s Warbler
Hermit Warbler
Some other species I’ll likely not see again…
Rock SquirrelThreadleaf Phlox
The Slate-throated Redstart was a very hot item, and I’m sorry I didn’t get a decent picture of it, but it’s here anyway as a memory. Apparently this bird is more common south of the Rio Grande.
Slate-Throated Redstart
Variable DancerEastern Fence Lizard
So all in all it was an exhaustingly beautiful experience, one I will always treasure, and I survived! Now if I can just get through the rest of my pictures from this trip before I go on the next one. More to come. Summer is upon us.
The forecast was for rain not starting until maybe 11:30 or so this morning, so it seemed like a good day to restart my lapsed tradition of visiting Goose Lake Prairie on the Fourth of July. It turned out to be a beautiful morning and the threat of rain never occurred. Even though I arrived later than I had planned, for quite a while I was the only human, which suited me just fine.
Song Sparrow, the first of many
Field Sparrow
Juvenile Song and Field Sparrows
Song Sparrow
Dragonflies were everywhere. I guess the one I’ll be seeing a lot of this year is the Blue Dasher. Last year it was the Halloween Pennant. Nice to see all of these this morning.
Blue Dasher (female)Blue DasherWidow Skimmer FemaleCommon Whitetail (female)Halloween Pennant
Killdeer
(juvenile)
DickcisselDickcissel
So I’m trying to write this blog post tonight with the explosions going off all around the neighborhood, frequently sounding like a bomb exploding next to my house. I hate this holiday. I don’t understand why I have to be miserable and endure this every year. Maybe it’s why I decided not to be born until after midnight 71 years ago – it was too scary to start living with all this going on.
Luckily it never seems to bother my birds, they just endure it, likely chalking it up to more stupid human noise. We have pretty music playing on the radio. What’s one or two or fifty explosions?
But I can’t imagine the outdoor birds are too fond of this. Oh well. Back to the blog post. This morning I got to see some nice birds. There are a lot of pictures in this post. Let’s just leave it at that.
Field Sparrow
Eastern Kingbird
There was one Brown Thrasher who barely showed its face and then hid from me as I tried to see the rest of it.
I hoped for a Henslow’s Sparrow and one complied. Their return to Illinois grasslands is one of the few success stories over recent years. If you provide habitat, they will come.
Henslow’s Sparrow
Song Sparrow
The Red-Winged Blackbirds weren’t bothering to sing, so the guys looked a little bored with their guard duty.
There were a lot of Common Yellowthroats and as secretive as they sometimes are, I managed to see a few.
I’m still on the verge of tears from the explosions. I guess tomorrow morning I can go around and see how many fireworks shells are in the yard. Something to look forward to. My indoor birds are ready to fall asleep. I keep praying for rain.
