Yard Bird #82

We had our 82nd yard bird species appear on Friday afternoon.  The bird was a blackpoll warbler.  I happened to be sitting in my chair at the kitchen window as I often do, just watching out back, when I suddenly noticed a warbler like bird in the pine outside the window.  I grabbed the camera and the bins, and outside I went.

Now it is fall and many of the warbler species can be tough for many of us to ID.  This is partially why I started photographing birds very early on; to help Angie and I figure out some of the birds we were seeing in our travels.

This bird stumped me a little bit.  I asked a friend of mine his thoughts.  He threw bay-breasted or blackpoll.  He asked me if I saw the bird's feet.  If they were orange, it was a blackpoll.  Thankfully I got a lot of pictures of the bird, many crappy (which is why I kept shooting) and there was some foot and backside shots where I could see it's feet.  Definitely orange.

So that's pretty cool to have another new yard bird, eh.  Only 18 more until we hit the big 100.  I wonder if we will ever see that or not?  I don't count the birds that I see fly over our yard on the yard list.  Some do.  Not me.  That's a separate list called "from the yard".

Do you track your yard birds?

Pelee Snippit

singing male Yellow Warbler

Angie and I just returned from the Leamington area, a 4 day vacation with our friends Jim and Lynda, hitting the "birding capital" of Ontario being Point Pelee National Park. It was an excellent time with mostly great weather. Our species total hit 86 by the end of it all which is pretty darn good going 95% by sight over sound. If we could ID a few more by songs only, we certainly would have hit 100 species.

It's been a funny Spring this year. It hit early, even as much as April was cooler than usual, everything is earlier. This year was far different than last year when we visited. We saw almost double the Warbler species in 2011. We saw a lot more Orchard Orioles in 2011 while this year we saw less than 10 in total. Much of the time the birds were high up in the trees and we were teased with their beautiful songs being heard while the birds were hidden behind the leaves. But it's a fun time, especially with having my other half being just as passionate about the birds as I am... and a couple great friends on the same level. We found a lot more nests in the park this year and even had a few Owl species as well (which was awesome as both were lifers for our friends); but this time of year, it is all about the songbirds passing through as you can see in the couple shots I am sharing.

I will post a lengthier blog in the next week or so with a few great memories from this trip. Stay tuned!

singing male American Redstart