It's been too long in-between my posts here, so long in fact, I should change the name to the Princeton Avenue Quarterly Birdwatcher. Anyway, I'm back with a winter report on some of the great birds I have spotted so far.
The best spot this winter on Princeton Avenue has been the Yellow-rumped Warbler. Now, I'm an novice birder to say the least, and I'm not sure how common this bird is in this area during the winter months, but this was a heck of a discovery to me. The first sighting was around the second week of February in my octagon feeder. There was a female House Finch having a nice breakfast when I noticed the bird beside it was a little awkward. At first I wrote it off as another Finch, but when you have been birding for a while a flash explodes across your mind and tells you to take another peek. Sure enough, it wasn't a another female House Finch, but what what was it? As you might expect, the camera was in the car and I couldn't reach it with out scaring the bird away. As i touched the doorknob to step outside the bird was gone in an instant. Experience told me the bird would be back soon and patience would get me my picture.
It was no more than thirty minutes before the bird returned and this time I was ready. I got nearly twenty good pictures of the bird and I was thrilled. This was the first mysterious bird at the feeder since the Rose-breasted Grosbeak dropped in last summer. Now, time to get all CSI on the photos and figure out what kind of bird we had on our hands.
After a half day of scouring through that multiple bird guides it finally figured it out. It was a first year Yellow-rumped Warbler. I haven't been this excited in months. The little birdie has been hanging around for over a week now, and I hope he stays near throughout the winter. Here is a cool pic of my little pal.
No comments:
Post a Comment