A graceful Cormorant luxuriates in the morning by the waters’ edge. . .
Category Archives: Birds
After listening to his melodious chorus for many long minutes, I decided to videotape this cheery Northern Mockingbird. He surprised me by suddenly becoming quiet, looking curiously right and left, up and down. I wondered if he was looking at me! And then, after about half a minute, he started to chirp a new medley. Mockingbirds are great […]
Green Herons are such characters, so fun to photograph! I decided to write this post in honor of my husband’s really cool Green Heron captures this week. He snapped the featured photo above of a heron peering out intently across the pond. . . When all of a sudden, his new Green Heron friend started […]
My goal this year is to learn more about the very small birds that come to our wetlands. Some, like the male Painted Bunting above at the preserve’s feeder, are easy – his brilliant multi-colored feathers are so distinctive that he’s hard to miss. The Ovenbird, the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and the Black & White Warbler were three new, distinctive little […]
Blue Jays are so common throughout the eastern and central United States and southern Canada that I tend to forget that not everyone is familiar with them. The Audubon site is a rich source of information about the history, behavior, and many varied calls of this showy and raucous bird. Blue Jays are known to be […]
Last year, advocates for a family of Burrowing Owls that had made their home in a local school athletic field were successful in protecting them. The burrows were roped off and marked, and the district re-scheduled games scheduled for that field to a new location.This year the Burrowing Owls are back! They are a ‘species of special concern’, “protected from harassment and/or […]
Did you ever have one of those moments when something happens so quickly that you have no idea what settings you have on your camera – you just point and shoot?Well, this morning, I was chatting with some folks about a Wood Stork in the pond, when all of a sudden I spotted this Great […]
You can hear the unmistakable, loud hammering of a busy Pileated Woodpecker from quite a distance. As soon as I got out of the car at the refuge, I knew he was there, and followed the sound all the way from the parking lot to the woods several hundred yards away. There he was – hard at work! […]
All of sudden, there they were – a flurry of pink as several juvenile Roseate Spoonbills came swooping in, jockeying for the best position as they settled onto the pond.The population of these magnificent birds was greatly reduced a little over a century ago, when they were hunted for their feathers at the height of […]
I’ve written several previous posts about the wonderful Yellow-crowned Night Herons we have in our local preserves. At this time of year, these special birds like to frequent a small wooded area along the boardwalk. At first, you might not see any, as they are amazingly well-camouflaged. But little by little, they come into view, and you may soon […]
Birder's Journey 