It’s been quite the week for birding. Almost every bird I’ve photographed below is doing something related to mating, courting, etc. A prime example of this is from Bird #7, below:
I’ve seen this a few times now, and it’s always wonderful to watch. The two males will sort of point their beaks at one another, making a kind of repeated poking motion (more of a dance than anything violent) and then fan their tails out in a bright yellow display. The female, on a nearby branch, will just stand there, sometimes watching, sometimes pretending not to pay attention at all, and then, eventually (I’ve seen this go on for two days in a row) one of the males will fly off with the female, and the other will just fly off in another direction.
All these photos were taken in Southern Vermont and/or New Hampshire, near the Connecticut River.
So this particular year is kind of fun for me– lots of opportunity to photograph birds while they’re really distracted by other matters. Plus, the leaves have yet to grow out, so the birds that are around tend to be more visible. Combine that with lots of sounds that alert you to birds that tend to go quiet once they have offspring (many birds need noise to find the mate, but don’t want that noise to attract predators hunting for vulnerable babies), it’s a cool time of year to be birding. So, below, I have once again presented a bit of a quiz. For any of these, if you want to spoil yourself, just click on the image to get to a larger one with details about the bird. Or just ask questions in the comments.
Bird #1: one kind of swallow
Bird #2: another kinds of swallow
Bird #3: One of the truly amazing looking ugly birds
Bird #4: The earliest flycatcher to return in the Northeast
Bird #5: One kind of woodpecker
Bird #6: Another kind of woodpecker
Bird #7: One more kind of woodpecker
Bird #8: Yet another kind of woodpecker
Bird #9: And now, the smallest woodpecker we get in the Northeast
Bird #10: Not a sparrow, but easy to mistake for one
Bird #11: One kind of sparrow
Bird #12: Another kind of sparrow
Bird #13: Another kind of sparrow
Bird #14: One of my favorite sparrows
Bird #15: A beautiful water bird
Bird #16: An amazing hunter, first I’ve seen this year
Bird #17: An adorable yardbird
Bird #18: Okay, not a bird, but still cute
Bird #19: A fun bird to watch hunt
Bird #20: A common Northeast bird, in its nesting hole
Bird #21: These are normally winter birds for us, but these two were exhibiting mating behavior this week
Bird #22: These guys are fun to watch on the side of the road
Bird #23: A common yard bird
Bird #24: One of my favorite ducks
Julie,
Is that a Wood Duck in the last photo? I have yet to ever see one. They remain elusive to my eyes.
Have you been to Putney Mountain for birding? I heard it’s a great but even better in the fall. There’s a hawk watch apparently and it’s pretty big. Best place to take photos of migrations and such.
Great photos…. as always.
I’ve got a few in my freezer. They’re incredibly plentiful in Addison county, which is good since it takes a few of them to make a meal. The boxes are everywhere around here. Both the drake and hen are very beautiful. Great photos.
Great photos, as usual, Julie! I like it that you put them in their groups. We’ve had phoebes for many years (there’s a nest under the eaves of the front porch), but I hadn’t remembered that they were part of the flycatchers group.
The nuthatch you show looks like a white-breasted. We (far north of you, nearly in Canada) occasionally get some red-breasted ones, typically a little smaller and shyer than the white-breasted ones.
We had juncoes yesterday and today, possibly a migrating flock heading north.
Saw what was probably an osprey on one of the CVPS-sponsored nesting sites between Fairfield and St. Albans in a wetland area atop a utility pole about 6:45 last evening.
We’ve also had a hawk (so far unidentified) checking out our feeders over the last week or so. My hefty guy-cat Max went on alert on the back porch, tail lashing. I looked up and what might have been a broadtailed hawk flew off from a tree about 50 yards away and circled the pasture beyond our treeline.
Woodpeckers, both downy and hairy, visit our feeders, and we’ve got a big pine tree with nesting holes for another cousin, though I’m not sure yet whether the current occupants are sapsuckers or flickers.
The first wood duck I ever saw was in Munich, Germany in January 1972 in a city park.
And your hermit thrush!!! There’s a reason they got that name.
Thanks for doing this — my spouse really loves the photos, and they bring new and different traffic to the site.
NanuqFC
While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than we can see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see. ~ Dorothea Lange
Just love them. I haven’t seen a kingfisher at Lake Lamoille yet. And I’ve never seen a turkey vulture that close up. Usually in the spring they roost on the Sheriff’s Tower, haven’t yet this year.
I saw my first loon of the season today. I love it when they come back. The world is a little better when there are loons on the lake and their calls in the air.
today birding, we managed to (very easily, thanks to directions from other birders) find a Bar-headed goose in Brattleboro, VT this afternoon:
It’s an Asian bird, but not likely to be a true migrant. As Chris Petrak notes, it’s also quite popular among personal waterfowl collections, so the more likely scenario is that it’s an escapee from either a zoo or a personal collection than something that accidentally ended up here as part of its migration path. There isn’t even a record of one that I can find for the US.