Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Good Birds, Bad Photos

.We spent the weekend at Anahuac and High Island, where we saw some great birds and got some good photos. However, I won't have time to blog about that trip until later this week. In the meantime, let me tell you about Tuesday morning at CyFair.

We'd had rain Monday night and so I got to work hoping that the weather might have brought some interesting birds onto the campus. I wasn't disappointed.

As soon as I started walking along the nature trail boardwalk, I spotted two male and one female Baltimore Orioles. The males stayed far away.


The female came much closer.


A couple of minutes later. A pair of Orchard Orioles flew across the trail but they disappeared into the bushes before I could raise my camera. The same thing happened with a Great-crested Flycatcher, a Yellow-throated Vireo and a Yellow Warbler. Then three Western Kingbirds had a noisy mid-air argument and again I wasn't able to get any photos.

Just when I was getting really frustrated, an Eastern Wood-Pewee posed by the path. Thank you!


One of the Western Kingbirds also decided to cooperate.


And an Eastern Kingbird.


A pair of Black-throated Green Warblers were much harder to photograph because they ever stopped flitting around.




A Tennessee Warbler was equally tricky to get a picture of.


A Chestnut-sided Warbler came and went quickly.


Just when I was getting ready to leave, I was thrilled to spot a Blackburnian Warbler. I was even more thrilled when this, my favorite of all the warblers, hung around long enough for me to take some recognizable photos.




All in all, this was certainly the best birding day of the year so far at CyFair.
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