Sunday, May 3, 2009

Rose-breasted Grosbeak- First of Year!

I was excited to see my first Rose-breasted Grosbeaks of the year. They were very noisy and very active, picking at the buds on the trees, chasing each other and also the Baltimore Orioles. There was quite a bit of action in Stiles and Hart yesterday.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak:



Baltimore Oriole:


I also got a (slightly) better picture of a Yellow Warbler, which I had seen in a different part of the conservation area a few weeks ago.
I also saw a Palm Warbler, which I always get really excited about because I think it's a new species of warbler for me but then when I look more closely I realize that's all it is. Still cute though and fun to watch.

5 comments:

Larry said...

It's tough getting good photos of these migrant warblers isn't it? Especially when you have to rely on autofocus which zeroes in on the branch, not the bird.-Looks like you're having great birding excitement though.

Dawn Fine said...

Hey..I think you did great..I am having a dickens of a time trying to shoot these moving targets...
Yikes..I will keep trying.
Good job..Love the photos.
Looks like your grosbeak is dripping blood. tee hee.

Amila Salgado said...

That grosbeak seems to have a bleeding breast.

Flowing Desert Photography said...

I am really enjoying your posts. You really have some great bird-spotting skills.

@Larry: Switch to manual focus mode if you can. I was doing that this morning to get shots of a guy I saw on my way to work.

Birdinggirl said...

@Larry- It is fun! Building out my warbler list for '09 is my main objective, but it would be really nice to get pictures... And I can't figure out how to use manual focus on our camera.

@Dawn- Thanks Dawn! I know- it is funny how that turned out. My pictures from last year look the same.

@Amila- Yes he does. In real life though he was very vibrant-looking :)

@Stephen- Thanks for stopping by! I still can't get manual focus right. I need to go back to my camera manual. I can figure out how to engage it and isolate what I'm trying to focus on but for some reason I still can't get the pictures to come out.