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more geeky bird stuff
Oct. 4th, 2009 10:12 pmthis morning i got up at 6:00 and was out the door by about 6:45. i arrived at the park at 7:15, and was treated to things like: downy woodpecker, common yellowthroat. i got a few dim pictures of the woodpecker. things were really hopping with songbirds this morning. alas, most of them didn't hold still long enough for me to figure out what they were. at about 8:15 i saw an oddly-sized, oddly-shaped bird in a tree. it was fairly close and highly cooperative while i held still and took pictures. it took a while for me to notice its long neck (because it kept it compressed!) and in the end it turned out to be a green heron. eventually, it decided i was too close and flew to some rocks on the water. i snapped a few more pictures, and a nice woman with a scope came along, and let me look through it. i need to get a scope, omg.
as i continued along, i saw plenty of great egrets and snowy egrets, yellowlegs, killdeer, various gulls, savannah sparrows, brown-headed cowbirds (who initially made me think they were marsh wrens. joke was on me...) and a few great blue herons. (also robins, mockingbirds, red-winged blackbirds, mourning doves...) i also saw what i *think* was a small flock of tree swallows. normally i have no trouble identifying them, but these were up much higher than i expect to see them, and i haven't seen any at the park since midsummer.
at 10:00, our bird walk started, and the first thing i saw was an immature little blue heron; i had walked past it about five times and assumed it was a snowy egret. in my defense, it was far enough away from me that i wouldn't have had cause to investigate, and without seeing the legs or the bill, you would never know the difference, because immature little blue herons are... white. lesson learned.
other birds seen with the group included: osprey, semipalmated plovers, semipalmated sandpipers, dunlin, pectoral sandpipers (actually, i didn't see those, because i was tired of squinting), black-crowned night-heron, least sandpiper, long-billed dowitcher... with the exception of the night-heron and the osprey, those birds fall into the category of "peeps". let me tell you... i am not really ready for peeps. they are not easy. and sometimes they all hang out together, so you wouldn't necessarily think to look to see if there are five different kinds of birds hanging out there. on the other hand, when they're alone, you have nothing to compare them to. peeps are hard.
qotd came about when the group stopped to watch the gathering of egrets. there were about 100 or so this morning, which these days is practically a "small" group. there was an older woman with us, sitting on a bench, eyeing a very small group of egrets that were apart from the large group, in the reeds. she announced, "i counted at least seven!" one of the leaders jokingly said, "seven? i think you're exaggerating..." and she was oblivious and took him seriously and asserted her honesty. eventually, someone directed her to turn her binoculars toward the big crowd and she was shocked. "oh! oh my goodness!" it was hysterical. maybe you had to be there.
after the walk, i went to a lecture about salt marshes, given by a professor from rutgers who just wrote a book on salt marshes. it was not totally uninteresting. it let out earlier than i had planned, so i decided to spend the extra hour doing a little more birding (i still haven't seen the damned least bittern!) and ended up spending two.
while i tried to figure out what a lone weird bird was, the scottish birder appeared with a companion, and through the use of his scope determined it was an injured yellowlegs (possibly/probably injured by the peregrines that have been feeding in the area. he was nice and answered my questions about it, and we eventually all three decided we didn't want to stick around and see it get grabbed for lunch, heading off in our separate directions. (i determined that there was no way for me to get to it and rescue it. believe me, i considered it.)
i got home at... 4pm. it was a good weekend that almost made up for the week and a half i stayed home trying to get over being sick. still no bald eagle, still no least bittern, but the green heron was a good find, and the little blue heron and most of the peeps were life birds for me. however, my feet are killing me and my upper back is giving me some grief from the carrying of stuff for long periods of time.
but over the past three days i've had a number of friendly conversations with birders, and it's been nice. i can't tell if it's down to the influx of birds we've had at the park the past few weeks, the increased frequency with which i've been out birding this season due to my new route, or the fact that i've been carrying binoculars lately. or maybe some combination of the above. *shrug*
not a bad start to this week, though.
as i continued along, i saw plenty of great egrets and snowy egrets, yellowlegs, killdeer, various gulls, savannah sparrows, brown-headed cowbirds (who initially made me think they were marsh wrens. joke was on me...) and a few great blue herons. (also robins, mockingbirds, red-winged blackbirds, mourning doves...) i also saw what i *think* was a small flock of tree swallows. normally i have no trouble identifying them, but these were up much higher than i expect to see them, and i haven't seen any at the park since midsummer.
at 10:00, our bird walk started, and the first thing i saw was an immature little blue heron; i had walked past it about five times and assumed it was a snowy egret. in my defense, it was far enough away from me that i wouldn't have had cause to investigate, and without seeing the legs or the bill, you would never know the difference, because immature little blue herons are... white. lesson learned.
other birds seen with the group included: osprey, semipalmated plovers, semipalmated sandpipers, dunlin, pectoral sandpipers (actually, i didn't see those, because i was tired of squinting), black-crowned night-heron, least sandpiper, long-billed dowitcher... with the exception of the night-heron and the osprey, those birds fall into the category of "peeps". let me tell you... i am not really ready for peeps. they are not easy. and sometimes they all hang out together, so you wouldn't necessarily think to look to see if there are five different kinds of birds hanging out there. on the other hand, when they're alone, you have nothing to compare them to. peeps are hard.
qotd came about when the group stopped to watch the gathering of egrets. there were about 100 or so this morning, which these days is practically a "small" group. there was an older woman with us, sitting on a bench, eyeing a very small group of egrets that were apart from the large group, in the reeds. she announced, "i counted at least seven!" one of the leaders jokingly said, "seven? i think you're exaggerating..." and she was oblivious and took him seriously and asserted her honesty. eventually, someone directed her to turn her binoculars toward the big crowd and she was shocked. "oh! oh my goodness!" it was hysterical. maybe you had to be there.
after the walk, i went to a lecture about salt marshes, given by a professor from rutgers who just wrote a book on salt marshes. it was not totally uninteresting. it let out earlier than i had planned, so i decided to spend the extra hour doing a little more birding (i still haven't seen the damned least bittern!) and ended up spending two.
while i tried to figure out what a lone weird bird was, the scottish birder appeared with a companion, and through the use of his scope determined it was an injured yellowlegs (possibly/probably injured by the peregrines that have been feeding in the area. he was nice and answered my questions about it, and we eventually all three decided we didn't want to stick around and see it get grabbed for lunch, heading off in our separate directions. (i determined that there was no way for me to get to it and rescue it. believe me, i considered it.)
i got home at... 4pm. it was a good weekend that almost made up for the week and a half i stayed home trying to get over being sick. still no bald eagle, still no least bittern, but the green heron was a good find, and the little blue heron and most of the peeps were life birds for me. however, my feet are killing me and my upper back is giving me some grief from the carrying of stuff for long periods of time.
but over the past three days i've had a number of friendly conversations with birders, and it's been nice. i can't tell if it's down to the influx of birds we've had at the park the past few weeks, the increased frequency with which i've been out birding this season due to my new route, or the fact that i've been carrying binoculars lately. or maybe some combination of the above. *shrug*
not a bad start to this week, though.
