Nesting

Now that May has passed and we are well into June, the nature of things has changed considerably regarding bird behavior. Singing has subsided, and the birds are not as visible as they were a month ago. In May, the birds were singing for mates, singing for territory, and sometimes singing for the sake of singing. Now, however, many birds have found those mates and established their territory. No longer is there a need to sing. In fact, singing can attract predators and other unwanted intruders. So the birds, now on the nest, remain quiet. Their activity now is focused on tending to their newborn young. Birders now look for signs of nesting, and this seems to have been a fine year for rearing young. We look now for nests and for other signs of nesting. When we see a bird with food in its bill, we know it's heading back to the nest to feed their young, and it is a sign of another successful spring. The little ones now calling to their parents for food will be the ones we see and hear next May calling out for a new mate. Today's shots include the Worm-eating warbler and Eastern phoebe with food for their young and a nest filled with baby Barn swallows. There is always something happening out there.

Birds in flight

One of the greatest challenges in photographing birds is to catch them in mid-flight. Stopping the action is only part of the equation. With birds generally flying against a bright sky, exposure becomes the critical element. If you use an auto setting, the camera is going to base its reading on the bright sky, and 90% of the time, the actual target (the bird) will be underexposed and turn out as a dark silhouette. I've found that if I take a light meter reading of mid-tone vegetation in the same general direction as I hope to shoot the bird in flight and then set my camera manually to those settings, I have a pretty good chance of getting the shot without underexposing the bird. We spent a couple of days in New Jersey this week in hopes of snagging an Upland sandpiper and any other cooperative bird in flight with fairly successful results. The thing about photography of birds is that there is always something new to try and always room for improvement. The images shown are (from left to right) the Upland sandpiper, a Common tern, and a Black skimmer.

Spring in New York 2

We're heading towards the end of the migration period in the SE part of New York and soon the songs will cease and the forest will be much quieter. But for now, we still have enough birdsong to keep up our interest and to let us know where to look for our warblers and others. While the symphony of song is the highlight of May, June brings in the reason for all this singing. Territories have been staked out and mates have been found. The nesting season is upon us and we can delight in watching the whole process.....if we are lucky enough to find the birds. They are quiet now, not wanting to draw attention to their whereabouts to would be predators. The nests are rarely out in the open for the same reason. And so, when we are lucky enough to see any signs of the process, we seize the moment. These moments usually manifest themselves in the forms of birds with either food or nesting material in their bills. So it was this past Friday....a chilly and rainy day. The rain worked in my favor today, however, as the puddles forming supplies the local Cliff swallows with the mud they need for their nests on the side of Stillwell Dam. I was able to watch and photograph from my truck as a number of swallows visited the mud source and flew away with dollops of mud in their bills. Spring has sprung.

Listers

There are many sub-groups in the general category of birders. There are "bird-watchers", "Backyard birders", Twitchers (who chase birds all over the world), non-listers and "Listers". Listers are somewhat obsessed with counting each and every species that they have ever seen and are driven to add to the mounting LIST of their sightings. Among listers are those who will only count County, State, National, Continental, or World birds or have separate lists for each category. And then are those like me who not only count species we've seen, but also count the birds that we have photographed. To be counted, the photo must be of a suitable quality so as to leave no doubt as to the identification of the bird. The rules are self-imposed and the judgment as to what constitutes a "qualifying" photo is strictly up to me, the photographer. To date, I have photographed over 500 species world-wide. But the list that really counts in my own mind is the ABA, or North American list. I am gradually closing in on 400 North American species and each new species captured by the camera brings a certain sense of accomplishment or even elation. The most recent was a bird I have been trying to photograph for several years. We've seen the bird, but either it was too distant, or the bird was heard and not seen, or the quality of the image was not acceptable. And so, when I got the images I was looking for at a local county airport, I was more than satisfied. The quarry was the elusive Upland sandpiper. For whatever reason, I finally found the birds at close range, in low grass, and with nice light. You can't find the right conditions all coming together like this all that often, and that is one of the things that makes "photo-birding" such a challenge and at the same time so rewarding. Well, we've successfully captured this species, and so now it's on to the next.

Spring in New York

I had just a short time to take a quick look down Ironwood Road in Sterling Forest yesterday afternoon and found what I was looking for. Perched high in a dogwood tree along with a beautiful Indigo bunting was my FOY Golden-winged warbler. In the brief period I had to scan the vegetation along the powerline cut, I had nice looks at towhees, Prairie warbler, and several Yellow warblers. On the way out, I stopped by the paper company pond and had a Spotted sandpiper working the shoreline along with a Great blue heron. The shot I took of the Indigo bunting seated among the blooms of the dogwood simply states what this season is all about.

Costa Rica - Tortuguero National Park

Depart Tilajari for the Tortuguero National Park. En route, we stop to visit the EARTH Institute, a college where stuudents from throughout Central and South America learn husbandry, agriculture, and environmental sciences.The university is dedicated to developing sustainable development in the humid tropics. We pass through some of the more isolated communities of Costa Rica before boarding our launch for the 45 minutre ride up the Rio Tortuguero to the National Park. Our bus ride begins to reveal some of the new avifauna we will encounter during this leg of the trip, namely the Crested Caracara, the Tiger Heron and more and more monkeys and slothes.
Tortuguero National Park - We spend most of the day on the waters of Tortuguero National Park. The early morning is spent exploring the canals of Tortuguero and its wonderful wildlife. Although technically not a birding trip, the guides here are all very knowledgable and when they find that several of us including Sharon and myself are avid birders, they are more than willing and excited to share their obvious extensive familiarity with the birds of the Park. Even the water-taxi driver displays a depth of identification skills we are indeed impressed with. He explains through our guide Stuart that most Costa Ricans grow up with the birds and therefore have a natural afinity and understanding the avifauna of the land. We add a number of lifers on the trip today and it is by far the best day of the already wonderful trip.

Costa Rica - Tilajari

We travelled to the Arenal volcano/hotsprings area and on to the Tilajari Resort. We enjoyed the hot springs of the Ecotermales Fortuna Hidalgo and birded along the San Carlos River where the resort is located. The dining area turned out to be a real hot spot for birds visiting the feeders and consumed a fair amount of our time as we photographed and tried to id the many species which appeared. Also had some great views of the howler monkeys in route to the resort. We raft our way down the enas Blancas River in search of iguanas, monkeys, birds and whatever other wildlife comes our way. Between the sightings along the river and the sightings at the Tilajari Resort, we amass a nice day list of about 25 species many of which are new life birds.

Costa Rica - Monteverde

Day 3 - A long drive along rutted dirt roads brings us up to Monteverde Lodge in the Cloud forest. After a homestyle lunch, we drive over to the Selvatura suspended bridges for a hike through the canopy. Our guides are Carlos and Andreas and although the birds are hard to find in the thick foliage, they make their presence known through their calls and songs.
Day 4-Our second day at the Monteverde Resort gives us great sightings of the Emerald toucanet, the Yellow-throated euphonia, and the mammal of the day, a white-nosed-coati all on the grounds of the hotel. We travel to the butterfly garden and meet Zack, an American who is pursuing his doctorate in entomology. After lunch at Sofia Nuevo Latino restaurant, we move onto the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve and visit a hummingbird site for some great photo ops of specialities like the Violet sabrewing. Tomorrw morning, its off to Lake Arenal.

Costa Rica - Part I

We had the good fortune to be able to spend a week in Costa Rica with good friends from CT. Our tour included travelling the rough dirt roads through the Cloud Forest of Monteverde and finally down into the jungles of Tortuguero National Park.
Day 1 Arrive at San Jose and get used to our new surroundings at Hotel Real-Intercontinental. Nice to see our new avian friends including Inca dove, Rufous-collared sparrow, and Great kiskadee. The rest of the tour group will arrive tomorrow, but in the meantime, we will take advantage of our extra day to get accustomed to our new surroundings. Day 2 - Continues at San Jose as we await the arrival of our fellow travellers. Take a stroll through part of San Jose and visit the local Supermarket for supplies before we head out for the Cloud forest. New birds include the Melodious blackbird.

Having read Scott's report on birding the Sunshine State, we figured we'd add our account of yesterday's birding adventure down here. Friends from upstate New York joined us for a tour of the Viera Wetlands south of Titusville. In spite of a late arrival at the site due to construction on I-95, we managed to record 57 species. We had set our goat at a modest 45 which we easily surpassed and had aimed at two specific target species. The first was the Crested Caracara and the second the secretive Least bittern. The first was a piece of cake as the bird flew right into the drainage ditch adjacent to our parked car for a meal of mudpuppy. A most cooperative bird, the usually elusive caracara paid us little heed and went about his dining while we were afforded a number of quite nice shooting opportunities. The bittern was not quite so cooperative. After almost 4 hours on the reserve, we finally got a quick glimpse of the Least and finally patience paid off. Sitting quietly in wait, we were rewarded for our efforts by several brief but clear views of this fine specimen. As we watched and photographed the bittern, an unexpected gem, a Marsh wren, flew right into view for us to study at close range. Just another day in paradise.

Owlets

This has been a great year for owling here in Florida and we decided to simply post a couple of shots of the newest arrivals. In the past week, we had the opportunity to check out a couple of nests with chicks on board...on the left is a barred owl chick awaiting its mother for its next meal and on the right a nest found at Sylvan Lake Park which was home to this pair of Great horned owl chicks. Check out the images and enjoy these little bundles of joy.

Chilly Days in Florida

Well, the sunshine state may be sunny, but it feels more like a northeast winter lately. By March, Central Florida is usually coming out of the relatively cool winter months and is on a warming trend. Our morning temperatures have been in the 40s and barely reach the high 50s for our daytime high. Hopefully that will change in the immediate future and we'll be back to what we consider is "typical" Florida weather. In the meantime, Sharon and I have been scouting out some of the refuges in seach of birds trying to stay out of the heavy winds. Cold temps don't generally bother them as long as food is still abundant, but the winds really tend to knock them down. And so, our birding has been mostly in the wetlands and more sheltered parks of late. In the past three days, we visited several local parks including Buschmann Park in Port Orange, Riverbreeze in Oak Hill, and Spruce Creek just north of New Smyrna Beach. We were pleased to find some new warblers moving into the area including Common yellowthroats, Black and Whites, and Northern parulas. These are early spring birds for us and their showing up must mean spring is just around the corner. We'll be sending them up to our summer haunts in the near future, but for now, we'll delight in watching and photographing them here at our winter quarters. We also picked up a new "year bird", the Spotted sandpiper, in exactly the same location where we had him last year. No mating plumage yet, but attractive all the same. As I write this, I'm looking out the window of our condo and watching the waves which had been coming out of the north for the past several days, now approaching from the southeast.....signs of warmer weather finally arriving!

Emeralda Marsh

We travelled out to Emeralda Marsh in Lisbon, Florida with the Halifax River Audubon Club. After yesterday's chilly and blustery conditions, today seems like mid-summer with temps near 70 and bright sunny skies.....a perfect day for shooting. We begin in the parking lot with the usual fare.....cardinal, blue jay, red-bellied woodpecker, etc. As we head into the reserve, however, we begin to pick up some new birds for the year. Our first Northern parula makes an appearance. While I don't have my camera in hand, it does give me a great look through the bins. I'll get the photo later. Walking the trail inside the marsh, we get nice looks at a Blue-gray gnatcatcher, several more singing parulas, Pine warbler, and Hermit thrush among others. At the impoundments, I get to capture an event I had never seen before. Two moorhens are squaring off apparently trying to win over the heart of a female who idly sits by and watches the entire affair. It's that time of year here in Florida and a young man's (bird's) fancy turns to love. After the official trip ends, Sharon and I can't pass up the opportunity to stop on the way home at two known haunts of the burrowing owl. These guys are the most reliable subjects we have and have never let us down. Both spots produce with nice looks giving us the perfect conclusion to a pretty perfect day of birding.