Monday, April 21, 2008

Yellow-rumped Warbler and other Sightings at the Charles River

I took a walk at the Charles River Sunday and had quite a few exciting spring sightings. The first of which as a yellow-rumped warbler. I spent some time up close to it on the bank of the river. I took a lot of pictures but need to perfect my craft since I only ended up with one good shot:


I was also excited because I was able to locate the songbird that I recognize from the beach at the Cape. I spent some time listening to it and attempting to photograph it at the very top of a tree. Here are my best attempts. Based on what I can see in the photo, but mostly thanks to its call I think it's a Savannah Sparrow.



Another familiar bird I was able to stop and capture was a Red-winged Blackbird- a regular at the River:


I also spent some time photographing a pair of Song Sparrows (?). Sparrows can be tricky though- I spent a lot of time with my guidebook and this was my best guess.



I also followed the call of a Northern Flicker and got these pictures from far away:




It was such a beautiful day and I'm so glad I got down to the river for a walk. I'm also glad I had my camera with me and spent some time really trying to identify the various calls- all of which were familiar to me. It's really important to start matching up the calls I've heard my whole life with the birds I'm used to seeing but in a different context where they're not singing- at a feeder for example.

7 comments:

Modesto Viegas said...

Nice bird photoblog!
I like it!
Keep going.
regards

Birdinggirl said...

Thanks Modesto- I just took a moment to visit two of your blogs and I'm really impressed with your photographs! Something to aspire to :)

dguzman said...

Nice walk, nice birds. That second song sparrow looks a little pale--are you sure it's a song?

Birdinggirl said...

Thanks for the tip dguzman- I'll look into it!

Larry said...

I enjoyed reading that. I have to work at trying to take photos and identification too.It's nice to see you working at it. I can totally relate.

Larry said...

BTW-I like the Yellow-rumped photo-good job!

Birdinggirl said...

Thanks Larry- I admit I haven't been taking advantage of the amazing springtime birding opportunities, but I will try to get out there again this week.