BirdingGirl

This was a nice little Memorial Day surprise. My parents were over for a cookout and while I was inside putting away the food and cleaning up Steve came rushing in asking me to check out a bird at the feeder. My mom was the first to notice it and Steve couldn't ID it either so they grabbed me to come out. I've seen rose-breasted grosbeaks at the tops of the trees where our backyard meets the conservation land (Stiles & Hart). I've observed that rose-breasted grosbeaks like to hang out at the canopy level and feed on the tree buds. I've noticed Baltimore Orioles and many types of wood warblers like to do this too, so it's where I often look when I go birding (or when I hear a rose-breasted grosbeak call and need to figure out where to look). I can't believe that rose-breasted grosbeaks are interested in my feeders with the abundance of food in the woods behind our house. A nice surprise though just the same!

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.

My boyfriend and I made a trip to Blue Hills last weekend and I was thrilled when he wanted to go to Fowl Meadow. We hadn't been there since our first trip in January 2007 when I tried out my new camera. This time of year there's much more activity there, as many of you locals know. Steve got some really great pictures of a Female Yellow Warbler: We were tipped off about a Rose-breasted Grosbeak and about halfway through out hike we encountered a male that was very active and tended to stay high in the canopy, hence the crummy pictures: We also encountered a Mallard family as we went through a swampy area. I heard them first and then saw the mother and babies making their way away from the path to the other side of the swamp. The male was actually in the trees above us and did a lot of squawking and flying around in distress. This died down of course as we got further away from the family. Here are some non-bird pictures I got while in the Fowl Meadow. This is an iris that I...