Catching Up On Weekend

My internet has been disrupted for the past couple of days and phone service iffy so I am catching up after several days. It was a truely excellent birding weekend. Hot but the humidity was fairly low so it was tolerable.

After already disturbing a doe nursing her fawn when I arrived (which I felt bad about), I decided to park off a ways and walk in to make best advantage of the quiet. As I was walking along the road, something caught my eye. A doe had put her fawn down and there was a pair of eyes peering over the tall grass. My friend came up about that time and we grabbed a couple of shots and walked on. Shortly after we could hear the doe snort announcing her displeasure with us in the area. When we finally walked back, she had retrieved her fawn.

The big excitement was the arrival of a Dickcissel. None of my weekend shots were really to my liking but I kept a couple hoping for a better. The place where it was spotted is quiet on the weekend but extremely busy right now during the week due to logging to clear downed trees from the tornado a couple of months ago. I decided it would be my second stop and the park my first. Am I glad! I guess because of the logging and noise, the pair had shifted over. I got this shot of the male this morning. I later got one of the female at another location but will have to keep trying. I did however count five that flew back over to the park area.


There were several Orchard Orioles flying about in one area. The young ones are in various molt stages of getting their adult feathers so their coloration was interesting. "Dad" Oriole was scolding the young ones with their raucous behavior.

The Indigo Buntings seemed numberous and were singing to their hearts content. I think I will head down to the southern part of the coast over the coming weekend. Several sightings of the Painted Bunting have been made and I have searched a couple of years for one.