Mount Auburn Cemetery

Our trip to Mount Auburn Cemetery went about as expected. No warblers or owls for us. Just normal, everyday-type birds. This hawk clutching a chipmunk was pretty damn cool , though!


A closer view unveils the banded hawk and the chipmunk's manifestations of terror!


Still a magnificent bird, despite the poor creature's fate!


We also saw a few other species. A Baltimore Oriole, for one.


We caught a glimpse of an Eastern Kingbird, too.

Birding and Breakfast at Broadmoor!

I hope that every mother had a Happy Mother’s Day, and I hope that every child enjoyed celebrating Mother’s day! I had a picture-perfect Mother’s day celebration myself, and even got pictures of brand new baby ducklings with their mother.  My family took me to “Birding and Breakfast” at Broadmoor again, and this year was even better than before!

Seeing baby ducklings was a plus, but it was hardly the only  highlight of the day.  We saw Bluebirds, Tree Swallows, Robins building a nest, Baltimore Orioles, Eastern Towhees, a Blue- winged Warbler, a mockingbird, a glorious Red-breasted Grosbeak in full song, a dozen red-winged blackbirds, a brown headed cowbird, a Flicker in the treetops, a Great-crested Flycatcher, and an Eastern Phoebe.  All that in addition to the big flock of ring-billed gulls (a rarity at that site), the nesting Canada Geese, and the most beautiful assortment of Painted turtles you’ll ever see.

After birding was breakfast of homemade pancakes and homemade syrup.  Yum.  Then I guilted my husband into buying me a Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas for a Mother’s day gift.  And when we arrived at home I received yet another mother’s day gift!  My lovely daughter had three gorgeous summer tops all wrapped in pretty paper and ribbons waiting for me!

I had a perfect day, despite the trauma and anxiety of the past two weeks.  A big thank you to my husband and kids, and a sincere wish that everyone else ended the day feeling wonderful, too.

Cousin Carol's Cape Cod Birds

My cousin Carol is an enthusiastic birder, and I managed to get a few shots of her goldfinch hanging out near the feeders when I visited her down the cape almost a month ago. 

Actually, there were a few goldfinch darting in and out.  These two were usually together.


There were a few Baltimore Orioles, as well.  We could hear them singing away all afternoon.


On the way to Carol's house, we stopped at small nature sanctuary in the town of Bourne.  This is where we saw all the Great Egrets, Great Blue Herons, Osprey, and Cormorants last August.  We were a bit disappointed to see only a few birds; mostly Canadian Geese, Mallards, and Gulls. 




My husband took this shot of two geese on the marsh.  (The metal structure on the left is an osprey nest.)



I cropped the image down to include only the Canadian Geese, but was hardly thrilled with the result. 


Then I zoomed all the way in to check out the osprey nest in detail.  (I've become quite skilled at deciphering the blurred results of photos taken from too far away.  It's a skill I picked up after spending hours peering at blurry images of the heron rookery!)  I'm fairly sure that there IS a bird of some sort sitting in the nest.  I also found at least half a dozen shapes that may or may not be birds too far away to see without much more magnification.  Even when these shapes are highlighted, as they are below, you can barely see them.


The red circles don't even help all that much.  I should emphasize that these might NOT be anything at all.  I have a very good imagination.  I actually identified more than the six shown here.  I'm fairly sure these ones, at least, are really birds.  What kind of birds I couldn't say. 


What do you think?  Am I crazy?  Or are there really so many wild things hiding in plain sight?

Baltimore Orioles at the Tennis Club

I wanted to try out my new camera when there were lots of birds around, so I pulled into the Tennis Club (on Edgell near the Mass Pike overpass) at 6:00 AM. There were tennis players there already, but I ignored them and went behind the backboard and started shooting up into the trees. It's not the best angle, but I was thrilled to get a bunch of great pictures of gorgeously colored Baltimore Orioles having their breakfast!



Taking pictures from directly below a bird won't get you a great identification image, but the Oriole's bright coloring is lovely from any angle!




Even though bright orange clashes with the pink blossoms, the Baltimore Oriole is stunning.


The dawn's early light can be a bitch for photography. The yellow tint affects everything in its path. This is an image of both a male and a female oriole.



This seems to be two males.



I also got a pretty good picture of a grackle.




And when I arrived home one of my cardinals was there to meet me! This image is a little oversaturated, preumably because I was using the VIVID option in the canmera. This may not look like a great capture until you find out it was taken from 60 feet away, without a telephoto lens, and is cropped to 1/32nd of the original photo size.