4/26/2019 - 4/28/2019
When it comes to achieving goals, the saying goes, "Time, money, or resources; pick two." I always like to include "luck" as an option. Sometimes, it's all you can count on. Anytime I get out to shoot, I have one goal in mind. I want one picture I can be happy with. I don't always make it. Friday, I had amazing luck. Saturday proved that I'd used all my luck up the day before. Sunday was heading that way... but I'm getting way ahead of myself.
It seems like a lot of my posts start out talking about how hard work has been recently. This week was no exception. I got my hours in early and took Friday away from work to do some birding. I was monitoring email and my phone while at the park, but I was trying to get some shooting in. I also had a phone interview to conduct. The park started out slow. Eventually, the weather warmed up a little, and the warblers came out to play - like all 5 or so of them over on Circle Dr. at Eagle Creek Park. They were feeding low and were pretty unfazed by our presence. A couple Yellow-rumped Warblers, a Yellow-throated Warbler, and a Black-throated Green Warbler stole the show for a while. Both waterthursh species were present but remained largely hidden. I spent a long time here and had a lot of fun. I went home tired but feeling very lucky.
Saturday, the weather called for rain by noon; so, I decided to stick close to home. I stopped by Ritchey Woods first. A Northern Waterthrush was singing from about 30' up in a tree. That was about the highlight. I headed over to Eagle Creek Park to look for warblers, but I'd used all my luck up from the day before. I got very few shots. I'm not sure I even really met my goal of 1 good photo.
Sunday, I headed south with my brother. I had dreams of Hooded Warbler, Worm-eating Warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush, Ovenbird, and a host of other birds that are more easily found down in Monroe Co. It was very cloudy and cold Sunday. It was so cloudy, it was too dark to shoot most of the morning. Not that it mattered much, we were not really getting good looks at anything. We heard quite a bit, but we did not see a whole lot for most of the morning. Around 11, our luck changed. As we were leaving Yellowwood, I thought I'd spotted an Indigo Bunting in the road. As I eased up towards the bird, it became apparent that I'd missed the ID. The bird was a Blue Grosbeak! We parked the car and watched for while as the bird fed on dandelion tufts along the road. Every time a car flushed it up into a tree, it would return to feed some more. We eventually left the bird to feed and headed off to the deeper woods, where we managed to track down some of our targets. Oddly, we never managed to track down a Louisiana Waterthrush. I'm hoping we have better luck later. They are one of my favorite species to photograph.
Thanks for reading,
Mike
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