Doubletake

Sometimes after three hours of birding I lose my concentration. That's what happened as I rounded a bend. Bird on ground acting like sparrow. Click, click. Wait a minute! "Sparrow" has yellow head. Sparrows don't have yellow heads. Click, click. Think, dummy!!! THINK!! Yellow head. Very pretty "sparrow". Click, click. Oh my God, a chestnut sided warbler. But they're supposed to be up in a tree. Sparrows on ground. Most warblers up in trees. Not if there are bugs on the ground. I had only seen the chestnut sided once before, so this was a grand opportunity to really watch this bird. It ate bugs, had already bathed, groomed, looked at me, then flew off.

Now I'll keep an open mind. Anything can be a ground-feeder. This was a swell photo op.

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The birds and the bugs

Nothing exceptionally different, but beautiful nevertheless. When the sun shines the yellow gleams........ the common yellowthroat, male. I never get tired of seeing them.

The magnolia warbler.

Magnolia bathing at Tanner's

And on the other side of the field, the "buzzers".

Not afraid. The insects are more interested in nectar than in me. If I wore perfume that might be another story.

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Time to smile

Every time I think I've seen everything along comes something terrific delicious. Here's one for the books: sparrows like chocolate!

And after dining go take a bath.

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Quiet and then active

Sometimes there's nothing going on and I start clicking at anything, and then out of the blue a favorite arrives, in this case, the female black throated blue warbler. I know she won't be around much longer. It's time to head further north.

I'm a little behind in editing. Huge backlog to edit and post.

Yesterday I met up with a couple of birders sitting on a rock. I asked, "What are you doing?" Their reply- "Butt birding".

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Each day is different

Every day has been different. One day there might be trees alive with birds, the next day nothing. I've been hearing and seeing baby starlings. This seems too early. They usually start appearing at the end of June and July. I'm following my nose. If I see something that's fine, if not, it's all good exercise.


The sweet downy woodpecker. Little bird. Big hole.

The common yellow throat warbler, female.

Finally the male arrived. He was bug hunting under the folliage. Very brief appearance.

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30 minutes in the p.m.

6:30pm is not really the time of day to be birding. The quality of light has changed and the birds have moved into rest mode. Tramping around was good exercise, but there really wasn't much to see. Wrong time of day.


Until I saw the robin by side of road. Pecking. I wasn't sure what was going on, because light was really bad. (You can't tell from images, because the digital tool can capture just about anything.) Peck, peck, peck with robin getting closer to me. I didn't move and robin didn't care that I was there. That's when I figured that I was standing in the "worm patch". It wasn't obvious at first, but it was by the time robin flew off. Baby feeding time. Protein for the nestlings.

Even the late bird gets the worm.

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