BirdingGirl

Ding Ding Ding- We have a winner! I am confident to say this mystery duck that I saw at Four Ponds Conservation Area in Pocasset, MA is a female ring-necked duck. Source: Lloyd Spitalnik's Wildlife Galleries http://www.lloydspitalnikphotos.com/ Leah at BlueBirdFriendliness gave me a good tip about Scoters and Eiders, and I was fairly confident that it was a Female Common Scoter in 2nd year breeding plumage , but the ring on the bill was lacking in the pictures I found. As my friend Dave always tells me, if there is a key characteristic missing then it probably isn't a match and keep looking. I should have known better but didn't think I could get any closer. Thanks to Andy at Andyslens.com for helping me solve this mystery! I better study up and spend more time outdoors so I can get a little sharper.

Thanks to Leah at Bluebird of Friendliness for the tip on the Mystery Duck ID (shown above). I looked at some pictures of Ruddy Ducks, Eiders and Scoters. I found a great picture of a female Common Scoter in 2nd year breeding plummage that looks like a close match. Source: Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust http://www.wwt.org.uk Source: Surfbirds.com

I was out in the yard again on Saturday practicing with my tripod. It's very tricky how I need take the camera off the mount to flip it around so I can either aim up or aim down. It's still pretty cool though and I'm excited about the stable pictures that I'm able to get now. Since our back lawn has tree-lined borders on either side, that is naturally where the birds like to hang out. Unfortunately it looks like I like to spy on my neighbors with binoculars and tripod-mounted camera! Tufted Titmouse: White-throated Sparrow: Dark-eyed Junco: Carolina Wren: Ok- so the Carolina Wren and White-throated Sparrow aren't the greatest, but those birds are fast! They're so tricky to photograph. Practice makes perfect :) Can't wait to get out there again.

Armed with my new Dynex tripod I made a special trip to Four Ponds over Thanksgiving to try and get some decent Bufflehead pictures once and for all. My mom and Steve joined me. We left poor Marsy (our black lab) at home since we didn't want her to scare the birds away. Even with all of these things in my favor--tripod, no dog, known Buffleheads on a small pond-- I still cannot get a decent picture. We went directly to the pond that borders County Rd. since we saw the ducks there on our way to the Barlow's Landing Rd. parking lot. I quietly moved ahead and crouched down to set up my tripod. I went with the 60" lightweight one since I thought it would be best for carrying while birding. I figured I could easily kneel down and still aim the camera up whatever bird I was trying to get. Well, that's easier said than done when you're trying to shoot ducks in a pond surrounded by bushes. That, and the fact that they're easily spooked. Wonder why.... I was able to fin...

It's been raining all day but that hasn't stopped the birds! They were a little slow to rise, but sure enough around 11:00 they were swarming the feeders. I couldn't believe how active they were even when the rain was at its heaviest. It's been just the usual suspects so far, but I did see an interesting sparrow. Since I've been watching from the safety of my covered porch I wasn't able to get close enough to get a good shot, and had to rely on the strength of my Canon PowerShot's zoom. Fortunately I had the steadiness of my new tripod in my favor. It's not very tall, but I can set it up on the table in the porch. It works out pretty well. The rain has added an interesting element to my shooting today. Some of the pictures make the birds look like they have white specs on them. Dark-eyed Junco and Tufted Titmouse: Male Northern Cardinal: Blue Jay and Squirrel: I know squirrels are a nuisance but I don't see very many of them (this is maybe the seco...

I just completed my second count for Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Project FeederWatch. I happen to have today off so I was able to spend more time than usual watching the feeders in my backyard. It was a light week, compared to last week: Black-capped Chickadee- 4 Blue Jay- 1 Dark-eyed Junco- 2 Tufted Titmouse- 1 White-breasted Nuthatch- 1 Northern Cardinal- 2 Song Sparrow- 1 The Song Sparrow was the only one that threw me off because I'm not used to seeing them when they start to bulk up for winter. Here are some additional pictures of my second feeder, hung on a fallen scrub pine tree. It doesn't look too nice laying on our back lawn, but I haven't had the heart to cut it up because the birds love it. Considering the open landscape of our back lawn, it's nice to give them someplace to hide from raptors while they're visiting the feeder. Here is a Black-capped Chickadee at the feeder. They especially love this feeder because I only fill it with the black oil s...

Today is the official start to Project Feederwatch, operated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. This is my first year participating and I'm excited because it will make me much more disciplined about birdwatching. I've never done counts before, so I think it will be helpful in getting into the habit of doing that. Although today is the official start date, I won't be starting my counting until Tuesday. I've decided to count on Tuesdays and Wednesdays since the odds of me being around are much higher than the weekends. Plus, it will be good motivation to get up early to watch the feeder before work (and start my day earlier on Tuesdays and Wednesdays). With the time change, it's actually daylight when I get up now so it shouldn't be too hard. This morning I went out back for a practice run. I knew there would be a lot of birds since I had been hearing them outside starting around 7am. The feeders were in rough shape (the smaller one was empty, and the long tube ...

Here are some pictures I took last weekend in Bridgeport, CT. Steve and I went to a concert in New York on Halloween and then on Saturday we went for a walk in nearby Bridgeport with some friends. Our friend Katelyn wanted to show us the monk parakeets but they were nowhere to be found. I did take some pictures of their huge nests. An urban legend she had head was that a priest kept them as pets and when he died the birds were released since there was no one to take care of them. I just did a little bit of research and didn't find anything that interesting- most sites just say they're the result of families tiring of them and releasing them since they didn't make very good pets.

Whew- that's a lot of s's in that title. These are some pictures I've been sitting on since my trip to my aunt's beach in Sandwich, MA back in August. It was the same day I got the video of the herring gull eating the dead fish . Sanderling: Group of sanderlings and semipalmated plovers: Semipalmated plover: I've been doing some birding here in Bridgewater, but haven't had too much luck yet in terms of lifers or rare birds. It's probably a combination of the lack of time now that I've adopted a commute and also poor planning on my part in terms of time of day. Steve and I ventured into Hockomock Swamp on Sunday and 99% of the birds I saw were chickadees, except for a gray/yellow warbler that I spotted right before getting back into the car. I watched it with my binoculars, but by the time I got my camera out it was gone. It had a gray hood and yellow stomach. Those were the most distinguishable characteristics and unfortunately there are several warble...

There was finally a break in the weather yesterday so I decided to make a quick birding trip to nearby Stiles and Hart Conservation Park . According to the park profile it's "A Bird Watchers Paradise—A Nature Lovers get away right downtown." Despite having high hopes for my third trip to Stiles and Hart, I walked away without any good pictures. Sightings included the usual suspects-- blue jays, chickadees, titmice, downy woodpeckers, a flicker, among others. Surprisingly, the best pics of the day came from my very own backyard. I have a suet basket, along with two birdfeeders set up, and noticed this Eastern Phoebe earlier in the day and was able to catch it on a return trip later in the day.

I just keep striking out today. First, I can't find my Sibley Guide (that's what moving will do to you) and now the Cornell bird site, All About Birds, is down. With the resources I have available I've come to the conclusion this is a White-fronted Goose, although I can't find pictures of any with such a huge bump on the beak. I first was looking at pictures of the Greylag Goose, but they were lacking the white band at the base of its beak. These pictures were taken right after we moved into our new place in Bridgewater, aka "Farm Country" according to me. I've always been able to identify the region where I lived—I grew up on Cape Cod, I went to college in Central Pennsylvania, I've been living in and around Boston for the last 5 years. Now that we've moved to Bridgewater I'm at a loss. Maybe we live on the South Shore? That's the closest 'region' name I've been able to come up with so I decided to make up my own since I don...

It's tradition to take a walk down to the beach whenever we have a family party. This one was at my aunt's house in East Sandwich, on Cape Cod. I stopped to take some pictures of this beautiful juvenile herring gull, then moved on and photographed some sanderlings and semipalpated plovers. On my way back; however, I saw the same juvenile gull picking at a dead fish. I took some video of it pecking at it, so if you're squeamish you might want to pass on this one. Here's the video:

These pictures are from my trip to the beach with my mom last Thursday. I was hoping to get some pictures of the Osprey (and her fledglings if they were still around) and sure enough she was out making some passes over Shore Road. I was also following this Northern Mockingbird, who was very active. I followed it down to this dead tree where some sparrows were also hanging out. The Mockingbird was jumping and climbing about the tree like a monkey until finally perching atop one of the tallest branches of the tree, shown in the right-hand side of the picture. Here's the close-up of that shot. Later on I heard the Osprey, which alerted me to get my camera out quickly. I wish I had had it with me back in July when the fledglings were out for practice flights. Their "bleating" calls caught my attention and there they were- probably four or so- flying in the exact same spot over Shore Road. About two minutes later their mother came from the other side of the road (where there ...

These first pictures are from my birding trip to the Charles River three weeks ago. It took me a while to figure out what these little wading birds were, but I feel pretty confident they're Spotted Sandpipers. According to Cornell's All About Birds Website (see the link in my blog's sidebar) they're extremely common on the edge of nearly any water source throughout North America. I returned to the river today and was able to get some more pictures, this time of a solitary bird teetering on top of the lilypads: Let me know what you think of my ID. The turning point came when I got to step 11 in my methodology : the National Geographic Birder's Journal. Sometimes it takes getting a fresh perspective to be able to see the way. Then I returned to my Sibley Guide to see his description of the Spotted Sandpiper that's when I picked up on the yellow bill notation in Sibley's description. Aside from the spots on the body, that was one of the most distinguishable ...

It took me an especially long time to identify a wading bird I had seen at the Charles River about three weeks ago. We were going through a dry period and the river was very shallow. The dam near Watertown Square was a prime spot for viewing herons and other wading birds. I took several pictures of two small birds that I guessed were sandpipers or something in the same family. I kept putting off identifying them in favor of posting pictures of other birds from the trip that I was sure of (the black-crowned night heron , eastern kingbird , juvenile wood ducks , juvenile downy woodpecker ). It's not to say I was lazy during this time, it's just that sometimes it takes me a really long time to identify a bird. I thought it might be interesting to share my methodology: 1. Upload the pictures from my camera 2. Delete the blurry pictures 3. Move the good pictures into a sub-folder labeled "Keepers" 4. If I don't have any good close-ups I'll zoom in and crop a pictu...