Monday, May 8, 2017

BOOT CAST BIRDING ~ BLOG THREE


Wrapped up my boot cast in a plastic bag due to muddy areas in the park.
Rob has to book his vacation for the year by the end of February, and I do the same, so we know we'll have the time off together. So after being back to work for 2.5 weeks I am now on vacation for 2.5 weeks.

May is usually all about birding, up before the sun, on our feet for 12 hours and crashing early to do it all over again the next day. Not this year. Little did we know when we booked our 2 weeks off in May that I was going to break a bone in my right foot the first day of Spring. My ever positive hubby says, "We'll make the best of it."

It's been 7 weeks today since I broke my foot, and am at the stage now where I am allowed to start weaning myself off the boot cast. I am allowed to wear a supportive runner at home, but still have to wear the boot cast when I go out. So far so good. I go back to the fracture clinic on May 23, and I am hoping to be boot cast free for my return to work on May 24th. But enough about my foot, let's talk birds!

Yesterday morning I braced up my bad left knee, put on the boot cast and off we went to a local favorite park, Colonel Samuel Smith Park. I had many first of year sightings; Palm Warbler, Oven Bird, Black-throated Green Warbler, Wood Thrush, Veery and Black and White Warblers,

There were many Black and White Warblers to be seen.
We have been visiting this park for many years but I have never seen the amount of warblers in the trees like I witnessed yesterday. They were filled with Yellow-rumped Warblers, Black and White, and also Ruby-crowned Kinglets. Lots of other warbler species were mixed in, you just had to look
Black-throated Green Warbler.
Veery
Wood Thrush, I only wish he had of been singing.
        I was on my feet for about 2 hours, and even though I was feeling it, it was hard to leave.

All photos taken by Rob on Sunday, May 7th, click to enlarge. 

2 comments:

Eugene Knapik said...

I love all the birds in Sam Smith Park, although I'm not all that good at identification (I'm way better at identifying mushrooms and mayflies than birds). Yesterday I walked my Newfs through the field with all the tree swallow boxes. It was delightful to see activity around just about all of them. A few weeks ago what I think was a juvenile bald eagle visited our neighbourhood (just west of the park). I was just getting home from a walk with my dogs and I saw it swoop down behind my house. Its wing-span was crazy big. I thought it might have been after one of our cats but it came up empty handed, landed on our roof, then flew south into a large tree. It was stunning to see such a huge bird in amongst the homes. It sat in the tree for a few minutes with several neighbours watching. I ran into the house to grab my camera, came out just in time to watch it fly back over my backyard, over the houses where it disappeared from my sight. We've had a bit of a bunny explosion in the area over winter and I suspect the eagle was visiting the buffet.

Dave said...

We are in Italy and the constant singing of the birds becomes infectious and we start whistling. The birds stop and probably think tourists. We have an owl that puts us to sleep at night.