BirdingGirl

My friend Phil shared these pictures of a Great Blue Heron roosting in Japan. According to him- there are lots of them roosting in the trees near where he lives and they make a lot of noise and are pretty annoying. I decided to see if I could get more information about Great Blue Herons in Japan, and found this great blog from Jeffrey Friedl with pictures of an urban Great Blue Heron, who is essentially domesticated by the people who live on that block since they feed him platefuls of fish. Definitely check it out because his pictures are fantastic and the story is interesting:  http://regex.info/blog/2007-05-23/466 .

These Great Blue Heron pictures were taken at Carver Pond on Memorial Day Weekend. We stayed in Bridgewater to avoid traffic and decided to take advantage of all of the wonderful parks in the are. (Earlier this day we went to the Tuckerwood Conservation Area, and then went directly to Carver Pond.) Anyone want to take a guess at what kind of fish it's eating? I haven't a clue, but I do know it's huge! I would never expect to see a great blue heron eating a fish that large, but that just goes to show how much I know about great blue heron eating habits. What's funny is that I wasn't even trying to sneak up upon this great blue heron eating its dinner. I was simply walking down to the water to (yes- this is gross) wash off the mess of a mosquito I squashed on my leg that happened to be full of my blood- yuck. Once I was down at the water's edge I saw the great blue heron across the way and of course whipped out my camera. For those of you local to Massachusetts, h...

Some of you may have noticed this box at the bottom of my site (scroll all the way down to see the real thing): It's an embedded topic-finding tool from my company, WordStream . This tool that I helped develop is very useful when choosing a bird blogging topic. It's free to use, and if you want to send yourself a spreadsheet of the topics (called "niches") and keywords to include in your blog posts, just enter your email address to have them emailed to you. Here's an example of how you might use the tool: Let's say I have some pictures of a Great Blue Heron eating a fish (which I do- I'm going to post that next). I type "great blue heron" into the query box and click "Find Profitable Niches." This is what I see: I can see that "great blue heron eat" is a popular niche topic to write about since it's near the top of the list. I just click on the niche to see the keywords associated with it. Since I have pictures of a Great ...

I have quite the backlog of pictures for Burrage Pong on Memorial Day, here are a few more. I love taking pictures of Song Sparrows, especially when they're perched atop a post or branch like this against the blue sky. It reminds me of some similar pictures I have of a song sparrow from the BwBTC trip to Plum Island last summer. During this trip to Burrage Pond we also saw an Eastern Kingbird : Can you find the Great Blue Heron in this picture? This is a very distance shot, but I wanted to use it because you can see the haze across the bog. People in New England will recall how this Memorial Day smoke from the Quebec wildfires rolled in and created quite the haze. Burrage Pond is a Wildlife Management Area (or WMA )- a parcel of undeveloped land managed by the Massachusetts Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. ( Click here for a map of WMAs in Massachusetts ) Naturally, since it's such a great piece of conservation land, there are several research projects going on there...

Unlike my last visit back in May, there was no assortment of migratory warblers today at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, but the wildlife certainly kept me entertained. The sweltering heat must have brought the animals out of their hiding spots. Today was the first time I saw or even heard of the famous Mt. Auburn Cemetery coyote family. During my first pass over Indian Ridge I saw a photographer with a large scope on a tripod trying to get a shot of the mom who was staring at us from between two gravestones off in the distance. Can you see her? Try clicking on the picture for the enlarged view. Throughout the day I also saw a groundhog, some very nervous squirrels (explained by pictures to come) and some cute chipmunks. You can see his chubby cheeks in this picture: Squirrels are not too exciting but I couldn't help photographing this one who was up in the same tree that the chipmunk was underneath while I was so close: While photographing this house finch: I noticed a (what I assume to be...

I went jogging on Saturday and this time I left my camera at home to focus on my time. Despite not taking any time to stop, I was still able to catch a few sightings. I saw the resident Great Blue Heron, actually prompting him to take flight as I ran by. This was strange because the last time we were jogging my boyfriend picked up on him after I had already gone by and he stayed still while we took pictures before continuing on. Maybe he was in a more 'fleeing' mood due to the warmer temperatures this weekend. The previous time he was hunkered down into his shoulders trying to keep warm wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. The only other interesting sighting I had was a Common Redpoll. This one crossed the path low in front of me and started hopping around the underbrush. My Sibley Guide says they're almost always seen in flocks (and when I saw them before on Martha's Vineyard there was a good number of them) but in this case I think they were there, but I just didn...

This morning I got up early and went to Pilates, then planned on going for a run afterward. I called my boyfriend before leaving the gym and since he was up for a run too I decided to forgo the warmth of the gym and head home to go for a jog along the river with him. As I left the lot I saw groups of seagulls, geese and (what appeared to be) buffleheads gathered along the edge of the ice covering in the bay (of the Charles River). My long jogging route involves going from my apartment to that very spot so I certainly had motivation to make it back there today. I made sure to pack my PowerShot inside my camelback and wear my fingerless mittens for quick access to the camera (they've been indispensable this winter!). It worked out well to bird while jogging today since the route is 6 miles and in this cold weather it was a difficult task to do non-stop. Mallard Ducks: It was their rows orange legs that caught my eye as I was running past. I had to stop and snap them since it was a v...

Finally I was able to get out and do some birding this past weekend. It was great to spend some time outdoors and also to get some good pictures. Thursday and Friday my boyfriend and I were in Vermont visiting his friends and then Friday afternoon we took the ferry from Charlotte, VT over to Essex, NY and cut down to PA for my college homecoming. We really lucked out with weather and had great driving weather and warm temperatures throughout our trip. The last two days of our trip we left up in the air and after pondering our next move over some craft beers in my college town we picked Gifford Pinchot State Park since there was a camping icon on the map. Oh that and the fact that it was the closest state park to Field of Screams , in Mountsville, PA! My boyfriend found a brochure for it in Sheetz and decided we had to go. It turned out to be pretty impressive. It's a strange feeling to be out in rural PA and then drive up to a such a sophisticated haunted house- it was like a c...

Although I haven't been going bird watching lately, at least I friends who have! My friends Dave and Meg got these pictures while canoeing at Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge . Meg was the one taking the pictures. I can't believe how many great pictures they were able to get. It's definitely inspiration to go to a bird sanctuary soon. Cormorant Great Blue Heron Green Heron Mallard Pair Painted Turtle Lesser Yellowlegs