Sunny, chilly (high
30s), with a light breeze
My birding friend Gerhard and
I took a ride through the countryside of the Gardiner/New Paltz area in Ulster
County this afternoon. The ladies
were involved with a meeting of their book club, so we got out of the way and
did a little survey of the local fields below the Shawangunk Ridge in search of
whatever pre-winter birds might be around. It was generally quiet once again, but we did come up with
several nice finds.
Our first was when Gerhard
spotted several high flying birds rising on a thermal over the fields. We first identified them as Northern
harriers. Their long narrow tails,
the relatively long and pointed wings with a slight dihedral made the id fairly
easy, but as we watched we realized that we were looking at two different
species here. The four birds were
actually a pair of harriers joined by a pair of Red-tailed hawks. Occasionally, they would be in the same
field of view and offered a nice comparison of the morphology of the two birds.
Eventually, they rose to an
elevation which made observation and certainly photography difficult. We moved on and began our short list of
the day with juncos, more Red-tails, Turkey vultures, a kestrel, and several
Blue jays. As we slowly rode up
one road bisecting two large fields, a Pileated woodpecker flew into a tree
covered with vines immediately next to our location. As I tried to shoot from the car, the bird would flit from
tree to tree and eventually found a spot to his liking buried in amongst the
tangles at the base of a tree. I
waited for the bird to come out into the open, and finally his head was in the
clear. One quick shot and off he
flew.
Not the most productive day, I
imagine. But it was a beautiful
day to be traveling through some gorgeous country and once again, a day out in
the field is always worth the time and effort to get there.
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