Some Lovely Ladies and a Gray Tree Rat

A fair amount of migration overnight and the iPhone with the Merlin app listening to the sound of the early morning bird song made me eager to get outside and try my hand at the waterfall. The partial cloud cover was pretty good lighting which is rarely the case with morning photography. As the title states there were some lovely ladies but by the time I got outside the main bulk of the migrants had moved on through. The Gray Tree Rat was a welcome distraction for the lack of birds but the Eastern Kingbird showing up again made it all worth while because I do love the Black and White coloration or lack of it.

Gray Catbird

Gray Squirrel

Gray Squirrel

Common Yellowthroat

American Redstart

American Redstart

Eastern Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Scarlet Tanager

Scarlet Tanager

Start of a new week

It was only in the low 40's last night and quite chilly so it was long sleeves and jeans when I went out this morning. I did a bit of work in the yard this afternoon, got all hot and sweaty so showered to cool off and changed to shorts and a tee before I headed out to the blind. It was a bit slow but the Swamp Sparrow got me going for a while, the Indigo Bunting didn't stay long before he was scared off by a Robin.

Common Grackle

Mourning Dove

Northern Cardinal

House Finch

Indigo Bunting

Swamp Sparrow

Swamp Sparrow

Swamp Sparrow

Swamp Sparrow

Rainy Saturday

It was raining on and off all Saturday morning but did stop in midafternoon. The light wasn't too bad and I headed out to the blind to give it a whirl. It was slow; very slow, mostly Robins and Catbirds with the occasional Grackle. The highlight was a nice Common Yellowthroat which came back for a second splash in the waterfall. I didn't get to process the shots in the evening and after trying this morning to pretty much the same without the high points of the Yellowthroat I decided to photograph a few of the flowers for a change instead.

Common Yellowthroat

Common Yellowthroat

Common Yellowthroat

American Robin

Star of Bethlehem

Bugleweed

Dandelion

Yesterdays Birds (the ones I managed to photograph).

 The forecast rain did actually arrive so Ive been going through the photos I took yesterday. The ones I took in the early morning with the sun in my lens I didn't bother with. As I mentioned in my teaser preview post of yesterday there were loads of birds around in the morning following a huge push of overnight migrants. Here's a few of them that Merlin heard:-

It wasn't until around 3PM that I got out again as I was doing 'stuff' in the yard and shopping etc, the afternoon light is better as the sun is over my right shoulder at that time anyway.

The Robin horde has thinned out a little but there's still a lot of squawking as they sort out their territorial boundaries leaving the waterfall as semi neutral territory. The Catbirds are just as bad, I have no idea just how many there are but at least 6 birds I reckon. Theres a lot of Grackles too but they are much more passive and come down for communal bathing. Unfortunately the Warblers had mostly moved on by the afternoon but I did see one or two during my afternoon and  evening session interrupted only by coming inside to make dinner. I stayed out until 7:30 ish hoping the shyer Thrushes would coming for a bathe but the light was fading fast so I came in and called it a day

Song Sparrow

Song Sparrow

American Robin

Common Grackle

Chipping Sparrow

Chipping Sparrow

Baltimore Oriole

Baltimore Oriole

Orchard Oriole

Orchard Oriole

Orchard Oriole

Baltimore Oriole

Baltimore Oriole

Eastern Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

Eastern Kingbird

American Robin

Common Yellowthroat