Thursday, October 22, 2015

Continuing....

 The Least Bittern continues to delight at Virginia Lake. The scope brigade was interwoven with the tree line as soon as day broke. It is quite remarkable someone even spotted this secretive bird hidden among the distant reeds.
 Those with patience were rewarded with much better views as the morning wore on. My inability to stay in one place for long periods of time sent me on the prowl for other birds.
 A quick check of Cuckhold's Cove and Blackhead yielded nothing new. I headed out to Cape Spear. When I drove onto the grounds the flyover bird shown below zipped over my car and toward the water. I managed to get one shot and no ID.
 There was a team of  RNC roaming around the grounds (scoping out the area for today's training session.) I didn't know why they were there at the time, so I chose to stay in my car. As I watched them stroll down the boardwalk, I saw a small bird flushed from its hiding place zoom into a small spruce near the boardwalk.
That was enough to get me out of my car. I quickly headed to the tree, keeping my eye trained on it, lest the bird fly away. I stopped about 20 feet short of the spruce and used my "tweeter" a couple of times. In an instant this great female Black-throated Blue Warbler popped out and sat on a branch in the open for several minutes. Wow! That was just too easy.  My good fortune with this species continues. This is the fifth Black-throated Blue I have seen this season. How many of them are out there?
Continuing to get my goat are the sudden appearances and disappearances of flashing birds I am unable to identify because of the brevity of the look. I continue to win some and to lose some.

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