Photographs by Frank

30 May 2016

2016 Ode Season Begins

Filed under: Odontates,Summer — Tags: , — Frank @ 12:00 PM

Small numbers (one or two at a time) of odes have been appearing in the yard for the past couple of week. In the last three or four days the numbers have jumped.

Yesterday afternoon (with the weather overcast and the temperature not reaching 70 deg F) found about a dozen dragonflies (a mix of Hudsonian Whitefaces and Chalk-fronted Corporals) perched on our deck while trying to stay warm.

All of these photos were made within a hundred yards of the house and in the past five days.

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16 May 2016

Mid-May Bird Report

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,Spring — Tags: — Frank @ 4:00 PM

Spring birds continue to arrive.

Along with the year-round residents (chickadees, nuthatches, woodpeckers, etc.) and the early arrivals (goldfinches and purple finches), we have had rose-breasted grosbeaks at the feeders for roughly ten days. The males seemed to appear about four or five days before the females.

On Saturday (14 May) we observed our first hummingbird of the season (a male; we’ve seen no females yet).

We also saw a single Baltimore oriole on each day of the weekend. We’ve not had orioles around the house before. Hopefully the feeder I bought and hung out this morning will entice them to stay.

Other folks in the “neighborhood” (the closest about a mile and a half away) have said that they have had indigo buntings at their feeders. Alas, we have not seen any in our yard.

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20 April 2016

Spring Birds

Filed under: Birds,Spring,The Yard,Wildlife — Tags: — Frank @ 12:00 PM

Monday (18 Apr) afternoon was warm and sunny. I spent a few hours watching (and photographing) the backyard birds.

In addition to the year-rounders (nuthatches, chickadees, titmice and woodpeckers) a number of returning migrants have appeared. There were good numbers of American goldfinches, sometimes as many as a dozen or so at one time. I am always amazed at the brilliance of the yellow coloring of the males at this time of year. Smaller numbers of purple finches were also present.

Small flocks of juncos (eight or ten) came and went all afternoon. I am unable to get a sense of what stimulates the entire flock to make an exodus. When they leave en mass they seem to startle everyone else (including me!) and often cause all of the finches to flee as well.

Lastly, I saw two singletons… a red-breasted nuthatch (which I did not photograph) and a chipping sparrow.

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30 March 2016

Spring Break Road Trip, Part 3

Filed under: Birds,National Wildlife Refuges,Odontates,Spring,Wildlife — Frank @ 4:00 PM

On the 2oth, we pointed the car north and headed for Georgia, specifically the Stephen Foster State Park within the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge.

Arriving in the late afternoon, we were treated to hordes of dragonflies in and around the campground. We had seen small numbers of odes here-and-there in Florida, but they were out in full force in Georgia.

The next morning, we took the boat tour out into the swamp offered by the park. They have kayaks for rent, which we would have done except that Joan’s shoulder was bothering her enough that she was taking regular doses of ibuprofen. Thus, we decided on the boat tour.

We spent the rest of the day out on the boardwalk entertained by all of the widllife.

Okefenokee NWR —

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Okefenokee Odes —

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We continued north on the 22nd, headed to Assateague National Seashore in Maryland, and camping enroute for a night in North Carolina. We spent the afternoon of the 23rd at the Virginia section of the National Seashore before heading to the campground in the Maryland section.

We spent the late afternoon/early evening of the 23rd as well as most of the day on the 24th exploring the various parts of Assateague before heading toward Lewes, Delaware where we were expected for dinner at our friend Sally’s house.

Assateague National Seashore —

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Sally and her boyfriend David showed us around the Lewes area, including stops at Cape Henlopen State Park and Prime Hook NWR.

Lewes, DE area —

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Sunday (the 27th) morning we headed home, arriving about 8 PM; just as it was getting dark.

We were glad to have made the trip and glad to be home!

Photo note: I made roughly 2500 photographs during the trip. I processed about ten percent of them and have presented 111 photos (approximately five percent) in the three blog posts. The large majority of the photographs were made with “Big Bertha” (i.e. my 600 mm lens); my 300 mm lens was used for a small minority. I think that I broke out a shorter lens only once… I guess that I was not “thinking” landscapes this trip!

 

Spring Break Road Trip, Part 2

Filed under: Birds,Spring,Wildlife — Frank @ 2:00 PM

On the 18th, we moved to a campsite on Pine Island. It is amazing how different two adjacent islands can be.

We spent both afternoons we were spent on Pine Island at Galt Nature Preserve (a tract preserved by Lee County). This small and out of the way preserve was very productive and definitely worth the visit.

Galt Nature Preserve —

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On the 19th, we spent most of the day at Audubon’s Corkscrew Sanctuary on the western edge of the Everglades in the Naples area.

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More to come…

 

Spring Break Road Trip, Part 1

Filed under: Birds,Odontates,Spring,Wildlife — Frank @ 1:30 PM

Joan and I just returned from a “spring break” road trip. We left the day after town meeting (i.e. Friday, 11 March) and arrived home on Sunday evening having driven 2840 miles all told.

After spending a couple of days in the Washington, DC area (visiting Katrina, my sister Cyndi and my parents) we hie-tailed it south and arrived on Sanibel Island (in southwest Florida) in time for an evening swim on 15 March.

On the morning of the 16th we headed into Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge and spent the day driving the wildlife loop. Late afternoon found us driving to the north end of Captiva Island. While Joan went for a swim, I photographed the peeps foraging on the beach and one half of a nesting pair of osprey that was perched in a palm tree near the nest.

Ding Darling, Day 1 —

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Captiva Beach —

(Peeps to be identified, but in the interest of timely posting, I’ve put this off.)

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On the 17th, we drove the wildlife loop in the refuge a second time and then walked a section of the Indigo Trail.

Ding Darling, Day 2 —

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More to come…

9 March 2016

Spring Training

Filed under: Birds,Monadnock Region,The Yard — Tags: — Frank @ 10:15 PM

Just like baseball players, the skills of small bird photographers get rusty over the winter. Thus for the past two days, in anticipation of spring bird action,  I headed about twenty feet out the back door for a bit of spring training.

Even though it was 70 degrees F this afternoon, the tufted titmice and the chickadees still seem to be in their winter mixed-flock mode. At times, there were seven birds at the feeder (with nine feeding ports). Also present were white-breasted nuthatches  and downy woodpeckers. A single red-bellied woodpecker made a brief appearance as well. There were also blue jays and crows present nearby but, as is usual,  neither species showed much interest in the feeders*.

All of these species spend the winter in our neighborhood and there was no sign of any spring birds these past two days. We did, however, catch a glimpse of a purple finch at the seed feeder a few days ago. I also heard the call of a pheobe this afternoon on a number of occasions.

Spring can not be too far away.

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* In the depths of winter we will get an occasional blue jay on the suet, but not when the ground is bare.

 

24 October 2015

Sachuest Point & Second Beach

Filed under: Autumn,Birds,Wildlife — Tags: — Frank @ 11:30 AM

Last Wednesday evening I judged the nature competition at the Hockomock Digital Photographers club. I left the house early that morning and headed for the Sachuest National Wildlife Refuge in Middletown, Rhode Island.

I was hoping (but not expecting, since it is early in the season) to photograph diving ducks (including Harlequins) that winter in the waters off Sachuest Point. There were surprisingly few ducks. I saw a single female Common Eider and a single American Black Duck; that was it. The ledges off the east side of the point held a couple of dozen double-crested cormorants. And, of course,  gulls, mostly herring gulls, were ever present.

On land, the most common bird, by far, were migrating yellow-rump warblers; there were dozens of them. Two different types of sparrows (also migrants?) were also common along the edges of the walking paths.

I had seen groups of small birds at the surf’s edge on Second Beach on my way out to the point. They were still there when I stopped after spending a few hours at the NWR. I spent more than an hour photographing sandpipers as they foraged at the waters edge.

These birds are a never-ending source of entertainment as they scurry about trying to avoid the waves, dogs and people while pausing intermittently to forage for a morsel of food.

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29 September 2015

A Long Weekend at Star Island

Filed under: Autumn,Birds,Landscapes — Tags: , , , , — Frank @ 11:00 PM

Last Friday afternoon we boarded the M/V Thomas Leighton and headed to Star Island for a birding weekend organized by Eric Masterson. This trip is timed to be able to see southward migrating birds, especially warblers*. We arrived back on the mainland about 3:30 PM on Sunday.

Saturday dawned blustery and although there were birds present, they were pretty much hunkered down inside the brush and therefore impossible to photograph. The wind died down on Saturday evening and Sunday was much calmer and the photography more productive.

I discovered that (compared to the spring time) photography was much more difficult since most of the plants which were bare in the spring were still more-or-less fully leafed out. Thus getting clear views of small birds was difficult.

The most common warbler we saw, by far, was the yellow-rumped. In addition we observed two rarities for New Hampshire… a lark sparrow and a lazuli bunting; both are western birds. The bunting is the first sighting of this species in NH (if it is accepted by the Rare Bird Committee).

Anyway, without further excuses or ado, here are the photos:

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Another difference between our spring trip and this one, was the number of people. The spring trip occurred before the official opening of the season so the only people on the island were the maintenance staff and a couple of dozen birders. This past weekend us birders shared the island with at least three other groups… the Star Island board of directors, sailors participating in the Gosport Regatta and a group of kite fliers.

I took time away from birding on Saturday afternoon to photograph the sailboats as they neared Star Island (both the windward mark and the finish line were close by).

Here are the sailing photos:

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The sunset on Friday night was spectacular. Here are a few photos of that and a mishmash of other subjects:

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* We participated in a similar trip, timed for the spring migration, in May of 2014; see this post and this one for the details.

 

13 September 2015

Powdermill Pond Shorebirds

Filed under: Birds,Early Fall,Monadnock Region — Tags: — Frank @ 1:00 PM

The water level in Powdermill Pond remains very low due to the work on the paper mill dam. (See Solitary Sandpipers for more information.)

Yesterday (Saturday, 12 Sept), Joan and I spent the afternoon paddling the pond from the launching spot on Route 202 to the covered bridge and back*.

Amazingly, the only company we had during the roughly three and a half hours we were on the water was a lone fisherman in a kayak. We did, however, see a large group of birders (the spotting scopes and binoculars, were the field marks we used to make this ID!)  scanning the pond from a spot on South Elmwood Road.

We saw a nice assortment of shorebirds, but no really rare ones.

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* We also spent some time out on the pond last Thursday afternoon. We saw lots of migrating shore birds, as well as a juvenile bald eagle and at least two dozen great blue herons. The skies were heavily overcast and thus conditions were lousy for photography; I did not get any “keepers”. Yesterday, the skies were mostly cloudy but the clouds were thin, This made nice light for photography.

 

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