Sunday Evening

After a session at the waterfall this morning I left the camera in the blind if I decided to go out in the evening which I did. It's been in the high 80's Fahrenheit this afternoon and when I went out just after 5pm the blind was like a sauna. It was bit slow at first but Canada Warbler dropping in was special. Shortly after by a Warbling Vireo which is a photography first. This might be the last waterfall session until the fall as it's going to be in the high 90's for a few days then 7-10 days of rain and showers by which time migration should be over and it will be too hot to sit in the blind. I'll switch to flowers and butterflies.

Canada Warbler

Canada Warbler

Canada Warbler

Canada Warbler

Canada Warbler

Canada Warbler

Canada Warbler

Canada Warbler

Warbling Vireo

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

I seem to remember a movie with the same title from the dim distant past. Yeah this is nothing like it.

There seemed to be a bit of activity last night at the waterfall and as the light wasn't too bad I popped out for a bit. It got darker quite quickly so I had to drop my shutter speed down to 1/250s to prevent the ISO getting too high. Apart from a puzzling female warbler I was happy that the Eastern Kingbird came down for a bit of fly catching. When it got too dark I came in to try and figure out the warbler. 

Sunday Morning. Overnight there were over 2.2 million migrant birds overflying Lebanon County but 4.2 million bird overflying Lancaster County directly due South of Lebanon. Does this mean that 2 million birds dropped into Lebanon? Merlin reported a fair amount of activity early morning and the light was pretty good, bright but high level diffuse clouds prevent the sun breaking through. I went out for a bit and wasn't disappointed. I did miss a stunning Blackburnian by being to eager to point the lens towards him, damnit!

Eastern Kingbird

American Goldfinch

Blue Jay

Song Sparrow

Wood Thrush

Yellow Warbler

Magnolia Warbler

Magnolia Warbler

Magnolia Warbler

Indigo Bunting

Middle Creek

 Yesterday afternoon I popped over to Middle Creek as the afternoon was pretty good light with lots of nice clouds to diffuse the  afternoon sunlight. Theres a new pond along the Wildlife Drive, it's more what I would call a wader scrape rather than a pond but whatever you call it's attracting some nice birds. Lots of waders/shorebirds including a Wilsons Phalarope and Cattle Egret recently. As Ive seen both many times and I gave up on lists years ago I never bothered to head over to see them. Needless to say I never saw either because they'd probably gone. I did a couple of loops around the Lake/Wildlife Drive and got a few close shots of a Killdeer and a Mockingbird searching for grubs to feed the chicks. Lots of Tree Swallows in the nesting boxes. I really wanted to get a nice shot of a Bobolink, I saw several close ones but never came close to getting a shot.

Northern Mockingbird

Killdeer

Killdeer

Killdeer

Tree Swallow

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.

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