Out and About

Our household now consists of Mark, myself, our 16-year-old dog Maggie, and a 7-month-old puppy, Zoey. Yes, a grandma and a baby...well, more like a teenager now. Walks with Maggie have been reduced to saunters at best, but with Zoey, I find myself out and about a lot more, ranging far and wide. And on these trips I am mostly remembering to bring my binoculars and do some bird-watching at the same time (as much as you can do with a noisy puppy along). I've been pretty lucky lately; here are a few of my recent sightings.

From a walk by West Bay:

House sparrow

Unknown! ID needed.

The unmistakable red-winged blackbird

Handsome fellow

Caught mid-song!

Mrs. Red-Winged Blackbird

Only saw him through the leaves, but here he is: the rose breasted grosbreak!

From a walk behind Building 50 (the old state hospital grounds), one of my very favorite places to go:

Indigo bunting!!

Song sparrow

So sweet!

Another view of the bunting

A walk at Center Road Natural Area, just a mile and a half from our house...

Pileated woodpecker

We were very close, but Zoey didn't see him at first.

Oh, now she sees him!

We went to investigate what he had been eating. Maggie, too (she's at the top of the photo).

Later, in the meadow, we observed some crows pestering a red-tailed hawk.

Finally, back at home, we had some excitement, too:

The common grackle has found our feeder. I think it's uncommonly iridescently beautiful!

Sighted yesterday about four houses up on our street. Wow!

Northern flying squirrel at the suet feeder! What the heck?

Not a bird, but does "fly."

Porcupine spotted out for a midnight walk by Rite-Aid Pharmacy.
We were driving home and Mark's excellent eye picked him out along the road.

Maggie was actually along for many of these excursions. Come to think of it, bird watching and sauntering go quite well together.

Chipping Sparrow

Out at the park near my house recently I saw two new birds.  Both had rusty caps, and one had yellow streaks alternating with maybe white or brown? along the head and neck.  Two yellow streaks, I'm pretty sure of it.  And a streaky breast.

The other had a rusty cap and a black eye line and a non-streaky breast.  This turned out to be the chipping sparrow, confirmed by my handy Sibley app on my phone which played its call, matching what I was hearing.

So I went back with camera in hand a few days ago, and managed to take a few pictures.  It's a little blurry, but definitely a chipping sparrow!

I still don't know what the other bird was, and can't find anything like it in my books.  I haven't seen him or her again.

Here's an old friend at the feeder, caught in the sunlight with her eye ring matching the bay:

Spring Has Sprung!

A lot has happened since last July, but I am going to have to just jump in with the present and fill in the rest later, as time allows.  Because this morning I saw a brand new bird!  A Baltimore Oriole!  Being from the Maryland area originally, I was particularly excited.  Plus, we just hardly ever get new (to me) birds at the feeder.  I've pretty much accustomed myself to the usual cast of characters: chickadees, titmice, cardinals, the occasional house finch and blue jay, sometimes a woodpecker (red-bellied, downy, very rarely a hairy) or two. Oh yes, and mourning doves.  (That doesn't count the birds in the water...mallards, mergansers, Canada geese, mute swans, ring-billed and herring gulls.)

But there he was, startlingly different! Flaming orange chest, black on top with white on the wings...yep, Baltimore Oriole.  Fortunately, I happened to have the binoculars out and got a good look; unfortunately, he didn't stick around long enough for the camera.  It's usually one or the other; I can see why two partners, one with binocs and one with camera, work well together (Jane and Randy; Deanna and Wilfried).

But here are a few pictures I have managed to take in the last few days...yesterday was the first sighting of goslings:

And a few days ago, I observed a conversation between two seagulls, which turned into something more:

Which brings to mind a question: why do I never see little seaglets running around? Where do they keep them until they're grown? 

And finally, our old friend the cardinal, looking particularly dapper:

Pigeons of Turkey

Okay, I'm not even going to try and make you guess.  I went to Turkey in June.  (I have been very fortunate to have been able to travel a lot these past few months!)  While the scenery was INCREDIBLE, the bird life was not so dramatic.  Of course, it didn't help that I didn't have a field guide to Turkish birds.  But even with my limited bird knowledge, I could recognize our friend the rock pigeon when I saw him.

Bonus white dove(?)  in this photo.

Other birds seen in Turkey include the following sparrow-like varieties:

Then there was this fellow, looking out of a pipe:

Interesting head shape!

Here we have some kind of swallow, I believe.  There were a whole bunch of these sitting on a wire at the ruins at Patara.

A few more unidentified avians to round out the sampling:

So there you have it!  I did see many swallows flying around, but they were hard to get a picture of.  And I think the Turkish people are raising pigeons for their poop for farming purposes...hence the plethora of pigeons.  Here is the exotic home of these pigeons:

Let's back up a little to get the bigger picture:

And even more, for an idea of the landscape:

Not bad digs, eh?

We passed these bags on one of our hikes...

...which we surmise are filled with pigeon poop, thus lending credence to our pigeon-raising theory.

Finally, just for fun, here's a photo of me and my traveling companions, friends Claire and Gillian:

It was a wonderful trip!