I entered my data into eBird and requested an e-mail be sent to me. The following is what you get almost immediately after you enter and submit your data. I present it this way just to let you know how easy it is! It also shows you that you can add comments in eBird to make it more memorable to you. It's a cinch! You do not even have to type names, just scroll down the expected birds in the area and remember what you saw (or tick them off the list you kept).
From eBird e-mail of what I recorded (I took out extraneous carriage returns):
____________________
Location: Holland Ponds
Observation date: 6/18/10
Number of species: 20
Mallard 4 Flying
Great Blue Heron X The oldest heron "kids" are almost as large as adults and actively flapping wings and "lifting off" the nests. It will not be long before they start leaving!
Mourning Dove X
Belted Kingfisher 1 Heard only
Downy Woodpecker X
Eastern Kingbird X Several. Feeding on bugs over the pond surfaces.
Warbling Vireo X Lovely song. Decent photos!
Blue Jay X
Tree Swallow X
House Wren X Lovely song. Decent photos!
Eastern Bluebird 1
American Robin X
Gray Catbird X
Yellow Warbler X
Northern Cardinal X
Red-winged Blackbird X Lots of young in pond-side weeds crying for food. They almost sounded like a short catbird meow.
Common Grackle X
Orchard Oriole X Nice pics! Just east of Waterfowl Pond.
American Goldfinch X
House Sparrow X
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2(http://ebird.org)
___________________
OK, so now that you have seen the species, here's the comments.
It was a wonderful morning at Holland Ponds. There were no dogs! We saw only one other person out for a walk. The weather was great! We were free!!!
The Warbling Vireo was a new one for us. Fortunately it sat in a few places where I could get a pic. Hey just tell me I got it right please! It had such a melodic song I thought it was a wren. :)
Damn dinky birds are LOUD! And wonderful!
Warbling Vireo
Another damn dinky bird with a LOUD sound - a House Wren! Did you ever try to get pics of these silly dinky birds after trees are leafed out? Am I right? Certainly a lucky pic! Most of the time it was always behind something! I think there were three of these there.
House Wren
We saw several Eastern Kingbirds flying over the pond catching insects. One was nice enough to pose for my best shot ever! I was also lucky enough to get my best pics to these birds just "doing" - i.e., doing the bug-catching thing! They are not as bad as swallows, but it is really hard to catch any bug-eater just "doing"!
The cats were out! We really did see Catbirds! We were fooled quite a few times by young Red-winged Blackbirds requesting food (Now!). They started off with the beginnings of a "meow" and quit. Same pitch and tone as a Catbird. It really fooled us for a bit until we watched the show with responding parents. We never really saw the kids (deep in the shoreside weeds), but it was obvious.
Later we found a Catbird that kept calling for "Harry"! Hair-ry, hair-ry. It was really cool! It was consistent for at least ten minutes, and reminded us of the last time we had a bird that we could name with its sound - the "uh uh" bird in south Florida (Fish Crow) near Ding Darling. We have yet to see/hear a Mockingbird in Michigan, but we'll take a Catbird anytime we hear one! "Hair-ry! Hair-ry"! "Meow"!
Here's a nice pic of a Catbird (Meow!)
And another really great bird! We got our first Orchard Oriole of the year! And it was the best looks we ever had! I am sure they nest there in the same area each year just east of Waterfowl Pond in the woods south of the entrance road. Last year we saw one on the other side of the forest on the middle path in the same area. I suspect there is an additional nesting place west of the gazebo half way to the path to Yates because I saw them there last year, and think I saw one this year (unconfirmed with pic).
Orchard Oriole!
Yes, a great day! Some other "crtitters": butterflies, Painted Turtles, and more, but today the birds were the main attraction! What a place!
Oh, and to end with a pic, here is a pic of a Tree Swallow flying right at me! Wow! These guys are hard to catch in flight anyway, but I just happened to be in the right focal plane!!!
Tree Swallow coming actcha!
1 comment:
just fabulous photos, Bob! wonderful!
Post a Comment