Birds of Spring
It is disturbingly frigid this morning. We’ve gone from warm, sunny, flowery spring to another weekend of snow--not light, wet spring snow but rather hard, icy November snow. What happened to global warming?
It being the coldest April 7 in living memory, we naturally got up this morning at 6am for some bird watching at the local National Wildlife Refuge.
The sensible hawks and larks and kestrels did not make much of an appearance. But the ducks seemed happy enough; we saw hooded mergansers, ruddy ducks, buffleheads, ring-necks, mallards, blue-winged teals and a canvasback.
After a seriously large breakfast of carne adovada, fresh tortillas and hot coffee at the local greasy-spoon, we came home and heard...the first grosbeaks of the year!
Al set up the spotting scope in the warm living room and aimed it at a tree some way down the hill. There they were, a whole flock of evening grosbeaks, the first of the season to arrive. The black-headed should not be far behind, and the hummingbirds should be on their way.
By putting my camera lens in the spotting scope's eyepiece and zooming, I managed to get this shot:
It being the coldest April 7 in living memory, we naturally got up this morning at 6am for some bird watching at the local National Wildlife Refuge.
The sensible hawks and larks and kestrels did not make much of an appearance. But the ducks seemed happy enough; we saw hooded mergansers, ruddy ducks, buffleheads, ring-necks, mallards, blue-winged teals and a canvasback.After a seriously large breakfast of carne adovada, fresh tortillas and hot coffee at the local greasy-spoon, we came home and heard...the first grosbeaks of the year!
Al set up the spotting scope in the warm living room and aimed it at a tree some way down the hill. There they were, a whole flock of evening grosbeaks, the first of the season to arrive. The black-headed should not be far behind, and the hummingbirds should be on their way.
By putting my camera lens in the spotting scope's eyepiece and zooming, I managed to get this shot:
2 comments:
Great shot of the birds. My husband's a birder and he's often out in cold or hot weather chasing down something on his list.
As an avid birder and visitor to one of our National Wildlife Refuges, you might enjoy visiting the web site of the Blue Goose Alliance www.bluegoosealliance.org. The Alliance seeks an improved future for our National Wildlife Refuge System.
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