Bloodroot


Scilla

I wasn't really expecting anything new today but I had a showdown to attend.  Got so frustrated with not getting a shot of a Brown thrasher that I called out into the woods ... "I'm challenging you, you ... thrasher, you and me at dawn tomorrow ... be there".  Well, I got there a little late and the thrasher had the nerve to complain about my tardiness.  Yes, I know, I said dawn, ... it was ... hyperbole.  Anyway, I got a shot ... perhaps not great and at high ISO, but it will have to do.  Also saw:  Eastern towhee (male and female),  Myrtle warblers,  60/40 RC kinglets + GC kinglets,  Hermit thrushes,  flickers,  Red-naped woodpecker,  Downy,  Hairy,  Winter wrens,  countless #s of juncos and WT sparrows.

Ever wonder why a bird might elect to alight on a certain tree and not another?  Of course you don't.  That's what you have me for.  I'll do some of the heavy wondering so the rest of you can take a break and chill.  I'm thinking that the similarity between the mottling of this wren and the tree it has chosen to bond with is no co-incidence.  OK, maybe it is.  Still, it's kind of cool ... so I posted it.  Perhaps I should have posted it in NATURE.  Now I have to wonder why I didn't do that.  I shouldn't have started.

Another fine morning and absolutely no wind.  Well almost no wind.  I do have that vegan diet so there is no guarantee.  There was not much change since yesterday.  I saw a Brown thrasher for a second but couldn't get a lock on it.  There were both male and female Eastern towhee but they were having a trial separation, or so it seemed.  Just for a few seconds saw another Field sparrow, but never close.  RTH flew over and cast an ominous shadow.  Four Winter wrens and several kinglets, both Golden-crowned and Ruby-crowned (60/40) ratio.  A few Myrtle warblers looking for gnats.  Only three Hermit thrushes, mostly in trees instead of on the ground.  YBSS flying around but rarely on the trunk of a tree.  A busy Pileated woodpecker checking to see if everything is as it remembers it to be.  This time I was standing directly in the middle of a deer spoor and a deer walked right up to me, about three meters away, stopped and stared at me.  Then I remembered that I previously had to communicate to a deer that I wanted to pass and gestured accordingly.  It hit me, this deer is waiting for me to step aside.  So I stepped a few paces away from the spoor and it then proceeded past me ... quid pro quo.


Field sparrow


Hermit thrush




Myrtle warbler ... gnats everywhere


Eastern towhee ...female


Flicker

My wife just saw a hermit thrush today in the backyard, our first for a spring sighting.