A gorgeous, sunny spring day today made better by a morning walk in the arboretum. Chris (the naturalist there) was leading it and I was along to wave the BPQ flag and carry the heavy spotting scope. Plenty of activity but the leaves are out and we had to spend lots of time listening and then pishing and then hoping to see many of the birds on today’s list. The morning started (for me) with Cliff Swallows around the weather radar dome on the road in and ended with close up views of an active Baltimore Oriole near the car park.
As a side topic and perhaps of interest to birders with scopes – a few years ago I purchased a “poor man’s” Wimberly type head made by Manfrotto for a tripod intending to use it to take photographs but never really made much use of it. recently I have been mounting my spotting scope on it and it just the best thing since sliced bread for following birds in flight and you never need to lock it on a bird when the bird perches – just take your hands off it and stays where you pointed it. A bit bulkier than the usual tripod head but really good … using this rig to follow flying Bobolinks at 60x magnification was a revelation. Serendipity.
The only bird picture was a Phoebe captured through the scope via my iPhone … not a good picture but I will post it below anyway and accompany it with an image of the sun slanting through the blossom trees … also an iPhone image and surprisingly good (I think) considering.
Early sun beams at Blossom Corner
The birds seen or heard (reported to eBird) were these … Greg (the man with the amazing birding ears) had a few more.
Canada Goose, Great Blue Heron, Turkey Vulture, Red-tailed Hawk,Ring-billed Gull, Mourning Dove, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Eastern Phoebe, Blue-headed Vireo, Red-eyed Vireo, Blue Jay, American Crow, Tree Swallow, Cliff Swallow, Black-capped, Chickadee, White-breasted Nuthatch, House Wren, American Robin, European Starling, Ovenbird, Tennessee Warbler, Nashville Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, Cape May Warbler, Magnolia Warbler, Blackburnian Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Yellow-rumped Warbler Black-throated Green Warbler, Chipping Sparrow, Song Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Scarlet Tanager, Northern Cardinal, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Bobolink, Red-winged Blackbird, Common Grackle, Brown-headed Cowbird, Baltimore Oriole, Purple Finch, American Goldfinch
And now the “needs must” photo
Eastern Phoebe “captured” by iPhone through a spotting scope. Not a good or even adequate opicture but when you have no real camera with you then you make do with what’s at hand.