Here in the Northeastern United States, it’s migration season – part 1. Many beautiful song birds are migrating from their wintering locations in Central America to nest and breed. This makes for not just great opportunities for the casual birder, but for wildlife and bird photographers such as myself. This year was a slow start though due to the unseasonably cold spring. This meant very few leaves on the trees, but more importantly, very few insects, which is the primary food source for most of my favorite species. However, as things warmed up, and the bugs started to arrive, so too did these feather friends and it has been great so far.
There was a point where I had no less than 2 dozen different species at my feeders, including species that I did not expect, such as Baltimore Orioles. Once I confirmed that the bird I saw was what I saw, I promptly put out some oranges and was rewarded.
While the Orioles were certainly unexpected visitors to a sunflower seed feeder, there were not the only surprises. Some of these included an American woodcock probing for worms below the lilac bush, several sparrows including a Fox Sparrow and White-Crowned Sparrow (unexpected), as well as an Indigo bunting and very late Pine Siskins.
With small birds also comes things that eat them. I happen to be out on my deck photographing some of the visitors when all of the sudden, they all scatter and then I just see a blur. That blur turned out to be a a Sharp-shinned hawk looking for a quick bite, so to speak. I was lucky enough to get some nice shots of him before he flew off to find easier pickings. On an aside though, a few weeks prior, I did have to rescue one that was hit by a car near my house on a very foggy day, which is probably why it was it. Sadly, I don’t know the fate of the bird other than the wing was thought to be badly broken.
While these have all been great sightings for the feeder, the birds spotted close by, usually on the way to work have been the most fun. One of which has been one that I have been trying to get for years, a Wood Duck. While I see them often, it is very hard to get good pictures of them as they are very shy and easily spooked. That said, I was able to take these shots from inside my car on one of those unseasonably cold mornings. Perhaps that’s why he was so easy to get a shot of.
Other such findings this season have been the American Kestrel, Blackburnian warblers, American Redstarts, Eastern Wood Pewee, Brown Thrasher, Northern Rough-Winged Swallow, Bicknell’s Thrush, Winter Wrens and a Gray Jay just to name a few. I know, the Gray Jay is NOT a migratory bird, but he just posed so nice that I had to include him.
