This post doesn’t have anything to do with birds, but I figured I’d share the dusk sky from the other night. It’s amazing how quickly the scene changes at dusk. A matter of minutes is all it takes to miss shots like this.
When I was just starting out in the hobby of birdwatching and bird photography, I saw a photo of a bird (I don’t recall the species) eating a berry. It became my mission to get a photo of a bird eating berries. But how would I ever get such a shot, I thought to myself at the time.
In the years that followed, I have had plenty of opportunities to get that coveted shot that once seemed so elusive. I’ve been lucky enough to photograph birds such as yellow-rumped warblers, blackburnian warblers, cedar waxwings, robins, catbirds, hermit thrushes, purple finches, house finches and song sparrows eating berries.
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Note to the neighborhood birds: Due to weather conditions, this feeder is temporarily closed. Please visit the adjacent feeder with a cover over it. Thank you for your understanding.
For the past two weeks, I’ve written about surprise winter bird sightings such as the catbirds, hermit thrushes, yellow-bellied sapsuckers and purple finches I’ve seen on my recent walks.
It could be shaping up to be an interesting Great Backyard Bird Count this year with all these birds that typically migrate out of New England still hanging around. Who knows what other surprises will show up on the checklists of birders throughout the region, and the world for that matter?
The 27th annual Great Backyard Bird Count takes place from Friday, Feb. 16 through Monday, Feb. 19. Birders of all skill levels may participate in the Count. Simply count birds – alone or with a group – for at least 15 minutes and enter the birds able to be identified and the location at the GBBC website www.birdcount.org. While the results must be submitted online, the birding itself can take place anywhere: a park, backyard, conservation area.
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Here are a few more shots of the yellow-bellied sapsucker I saw the other day tapping on a tree. Note the aligned holes in the tree shown in some of the photos. Here is the post with the full column.
Before this recent string of sunny days, it seemed like it had been weeks since the sun had shown itself. It was gray day after gray day with some of the days made even more gloomy with cold rain. On a walk during one of those gray days, I spotted a flock of bluebirds darting from tree to tree and from tall grass to tall grass in an adjacent field. While most of the flock kept their distance, this drab adult bluebird didin’t mind my presence and let me grab a few portraits.
The woods seem to be full of surprises this winter.
Last week I wrote about the gray catbird I have been seeing on my walks this winter. On a walk last week, which was done when it was about 15 degrees outside, I had four species that were marked as “unusual” by eBird, a maassive database of bird sightings. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the birds are rare, but rather they are not commonly seen in New England during the winter. The species were: catbird, hermit thrush, purple finch and yellow-bellied sapsucker.
The catbird, thrush and finch were all species I had seen on previous walks this winter. In fact, it seems as though I typically find a hermit thrush or two each winter in New England. Like the catbird, hermit thrushes typically migrate south of New England before winter, but some remain in our region, opting to tolerate the cold weather rather than take on the risks of migration.
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Some things just don’t seem to go together. Peanut butter and tuna fish. Flip-flops on a treadmill. And hearing a catbird when it is 25 degrees and snowing during a New England winter.
I mentioned in last week’s column that I had seen a gray catbird during a recent bird walk. I returned to the same spot several days later. This time, snow was falling all around, painting the beautiful landscape in a covering of pristine white.
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Came across this beauty during a recent walk in southern New England.
I got lucky with this photo. I assumed the birds did not like the dark berries in a small tree in the side yard because winter was moving along and nothing was touching them. As I sat at my desk working the other day, I noticed a flurry of activity out of the corner of my eye. It was a flock of a dozen or more robins descending upon the tree at once. I sneaked onto the covered porch by the tree and hoped the robins wouldn’t take off at the disruption. Most of the photos did not turn out well because of distracting branches in the way, but this one turned out pretty well.
I’ve had pretty good luck with birds-eating-berries photos this past week. I’ll post more photos soon. Thanks for checking out birdsofnewengland.com
Birds of New England.com 