Bird Blogger/Twitterer/Chirper Field Trip - update 2

Well, we are a little over two weeks away from our Bird Blogger/Twitterer/Chirper field trip, and we've got lots of great interest. Here is what I suggest for the day:

Meeting place: the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge visitor center at 6 Plum Island Turnpike in Newburyport , MA. (It is directly across the road from the Massachusetts Audubon building.) Directions and information can be found here.
Meeting time: 8:00am on Saturday, June 13th

We'll start out by birding the refuge for the first part of the day. (And blogger/twitterer and Plover-warden Janet will be working on the refuge that morning, so we'll visit with her too, and she can join us for the rest of the day when her shift is over.) I expect that we will remain on the refuge until at least noon. And then it seems like many people are interested in seeing the Mississippi Kites that have returned to southern NH, as well as sharp-tailed sparrows (both species are possible), all of which are only about a half an hour away. (And we can catch up with blogger/chirper Laurie) We'll see where the day brings us.

I would suggest bringing drinks and snacks or a sandwich. If needed there are places we can stop to pick up a quick bite.

Oh - and don't forget to bring you bins, cameras, sketching materials, etc.

And I'm still thinking that (if people are interested) we can also do a Sunday morning trip to Mt. Auburn Cemetery for anybody interested.

I know that originally I asked that people interested leave me a comment, but as the group is growing I'd like to ask that if you are interested in joining us (and we'd love to have you!) please e-mail me and let me know.
Also, please feel free to e-mail me with questions, comments, suggestions, etc!!!


PS - I know that there will be a few of you that will be travelling a bit to get here. (Bev, I looking at you - Catherine you still up for it? Anybody else?) I'll presume that you'll be coming in on Friday night. Let me know if you think you'll leave Saturday afternoon/evening or Sunday. Also, I'll do everything I can to help find accommodations.

I think that's it for this update. Stay tuned, I am sure that there will be more...

Wordless Wednesday 6/3/09

Common Whitetail (Libellula lydia) - Male above, female below

Get Wordless over at Wordless Wednesday

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker for June Photo-a-day

Photographed at Pondicherry National Wildlife Refuge in Jefferson,NH

Attempt at something new...

Usually when I get out on the weekends, I manage to take quite a few photos. None of them are ever "publication" quality, but I like to think that I get a couple each week that are interesting enough for my little corner of the blogosphere. Unfortunately, I am not posting as often as I like, and maybe some that I plan to use in posts never get to see the light of day (unless people are visiting my pBase site with some regularity, but I don't expect that.)

SO, for the month of June I am going to try to post (at least) one photo a day for the entire month. I am already doing something like this on some days, when I participate in the Bird Photography Weekly and Wordless Wednesday posts, so I only have to cover 5 more days a week, right?

As I am typing this, it seems to me like I am going to have a hard time coming up with 29 more photos that people will find interesting... and not redundant... and doesn't drive away readers...
...
...
Yikes - what the heck am I getting myself into?!?

Well, here goes - wish me luck.

Bird Photography Weekly #40

This week's Bird Photography Weekly post is about a member of my favorite family of birds.

On Sunday morning I decided to get out of the house early (5am) and headed north of Franconia Notch in New Hampshire to where I saw my life Black-backed Woodpecker five years ago. I've seen them there again a few times since, as well as on the Caps Ridge Trail where I've led a few trips in the past, but it's been two years since I've seen one, and this woodpecker fanatic was "jonesing for a fix." I arrived at Trudeau Road in Bethlehem, NH at 7am and in about an hour or so found my first male Black-backed Woodpecker.

It was cool and overcast, and the light wasn't great but while he remained in the area, I managed to get a few shots off:

At one point he flew to another tree where there was an relatively fresh cavity, that he explored for a few minutes before flying further into the woods.


Let's take a closer look at the cavity:
This is a typical Black-backed Woodpecker cavity - particularly notice that the bottom of the hole is actually bevelled a little bit where you can see the lighter cambium layer of the tree. Often times I have also noticed scratches and small bits of bark chipped from the tree near the cavity.(Slightly more evident in this digiscoped photo I took a few years ago.)

Black-backed Woodpeckers also have pretty distinct vocalizations, which you can hear at Cornell Lab's All About Birds site here.

While meandering the area a bit more, I noted lighter tapping - more of a foraging sound, and quickly found a female. She flew towards the cavity, called a few times, and the male came in a made a similar sound to what is heard in the link above. She then flew to another tree and peeled the bark off of it a bit.

Every now and again, I remember that the camera has a movie function, although I'm not great with it. Nevertheless this shows the female doing what woodpeckers do:

To see some great bird photos from around the world, check out: