Skip to main content

Early Morning Birdwatching

Image
By
As I mentioned in my last post, I've been doing a lot more of my runs in the morning now that the sun's out so early. It's great especially since we're having a little bit of a heat wave so it's still nice and cool in the morning.

I really like the challenge of trying to identify birds without slowing down or stopping. The path I run along is very dense in vegetation, which makes it even harder to spot the birds when I hear their calls.

The few birds I was able to spot yesterday morning included two Baltimore Orioles (very vocal), a Goldfinch and what I believe was a Northern Waterthrush, since my Sibley Guide says they're very common in dense shrubs and small trees new slow-moving or standing water. I've seen these little and white-streaked birds during many of my trips down to the river, but I haven't put much effort into identifying them. I'll have to get a better look next time.

I'm going to be down the Cape this weekend for Memorial Day. I'm a little nervous about the traffic, but I'll try to be optimistic. We're going down Sunday to go camping in North Truro. The Wellfleet Audubon Sanctuary is on the way and I really want to try and stop there. I know they have some wonderful trails and it's an excellent spot for birding.
Labels:

Comments

Larry said…
I hope you have a good time birding there.-Take some pics, and let us know how you make out.
May 27, 2007 at 9:51:00 AM PDT
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
June 8, 2007 at 9:21:00 AM PDT
Veery said…
I like your blog, it is a good read.
Birding-by-jogging; another fun way to bird! I can't think of a better activity to mix with jogging. Birds Rule!
June 8, 2007 at 9:24:00 AM PDT
Cathleen Voss said…
dguzman, the trip was good but we got stuck in SO much traffic. That's something I forget about being a native of Cape Cod. On holiday weekends we usually bunker down and down go anywhere so I forget how bad Route 6 can be. Another downside to the trip was that we didn't make it to the Wellfleet bird sanctuary. But thanks for the reminder- I want to make it a priority before the end of the summer. I see you're from central Pennsylvania. I went to college there- it's a beautiful area. I love going hiking and camping there now.
August 7, 2007 at 6:27:00 PM PDT
Cathleen Voss said…
Hi veery, thanks for stopping by. I definitely need to make my blog more of a priority, but I still try to check in as much as possible. Yes- jogging and birding is really fun. I run the same route every time so I'm familiar with the area and I actually try to practice identifying calls. More times than not I can't see the bird, but when I do and I guess right it's a great feeling.
August 7, 2007 at 6:31:00 PM PDT
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Difference Between Grackles and Starlings

By
I saw a sad sight today during my lunchtime jog—a dead grackle. Or was it a starling? I'll get to that in a minute. I was making my way down to the trail along the Charles River when I saw what I thought was an injured bird in the middle of the road. It was just sitting there and I figured it was just stunned or maybe had an injured wing. The bird probably didn't have much of a chance, but the least I could move it out of the road. As I got closer to the bird I saw it had its mouth open and then I realized the gruesome truth—it was dead and was frozen in that position. I just got shivers thinking about it. The poor thing. Anyway, so it got me to thinking 'What is the difference between grackles and starlings?' I use the two interchangeably and haven't really made an effort to sort it out. Until now. I like to use All About Birds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as an online resource. The site is comprehensive and easy to use. (I also really like the 'Cool ...
26 comments
Read more

Using Birds to Control Tomato Hornworms

By
Here's a lovely macro shot of a tomato hornworm caterpillar taking a little break from gorging himself on my tomatoes. Ever seen one before? They're huge and pretty startling to come across when you're pruning your tomato plants. They blend right in, until you accidentally touch one- hopefully not with the horned end! This picture was taken near the end of the season so I wasn't SO upset, but I definitely want to prevent hornworms for next season. I started doing some research on how to get rid of tomato hornworms and the good news is you don't need to use insecticides or crazy home remedies- birds will do the work for you! This great website I found- the Yardener has a whole section about insect pests in the vegetable garden. According to the site, feeding birds year-round will help you control the tomato hornworm problem in your garden. For bird lovers, this shouldn't be a chore at all. Just keep your feeders full with desirable seed like black-oil sunflower s...
1 comment
Read more

Large-billed Crow pictures from Japan

By
These large-billed crow pictures come courtesy of my work colleague Phil who lives in Japan. He told me he had some great Japanese crow pictures, and the first thing I noticed about the bird was the large bill. I started doing some research to come up with the correct crow name. First I thought it was a carrion crow since those are a common type of Japanese crow, but the bill wasn't big enough. Then I found pictures of the large-billed crow and those were a match! Duh- "large bill"- it couldn't have been any simpler. These crows are also called jungle crows, but most of the birding sites call them large-billed crows. Phil said they can get really big, which I believe since American crows are huge sometimes. I have vivid memories of standing my in my parents Cape Cod kitchen doing dishes and getting spooked by something huge in my periphery on the deck. All it ever was was a giant crow, but really they can be scary when they get so big! Here are some interesting thing...
Post a Comment
Read more