Breeding Bird Survey 2012 – Day 3 – Moving camp from The Shoals to White River
As we were traveling along the forest road from the end of today’s BBS – tha Shoals, we were discussing stopping for lunch in Wawa, Ontario. When we reached the highway again, my mind was on food. As I headed the car in the direction of Wawa, Gerhard calmly asked me if it might be nice to pick up the tents first! OOPS!
Tents were still at The Shoals Provincial Park so a u-turn was in order and executed beautifully :-).
As we drive along, we are constantly looking for various bird species. Usually by the time that I am able to stop the car, the subject has left for a different location. Sometimes, I get the shot and other times I don’t. The one above fits into the “saw one briefly” classification. As I backed-up the car and readied the camera and longer lens, Gerhard whispered, “Hurry, I think that he is going to fly.” I did and he did! (not the sharpest photo in the world but proof that we did see one :-))
Once we had arrived in White River and got settled in our room, we took a walk along the shore of the lake. Red -winged black birds , song sparrows, a snipe, a couple of species of sparrows and a Common Yellowthroat were seen close by and various gulls and ducks and a loon were further out on the lake.
Savannah Sparrow (Passerculus sandwichensis)
Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)
Along the beach, there were numerous spots where the Tiger Butterflies were gathering. Then I spied what I thought might be some reptile on a rock. I edged closer one step at a time thinking that I was doing pretty good sneaking up on this unknown creature out on that rock. Even when I got close enough to identify what it was, it didn’t move!
Having photographed the mystery creature, I decided that it was getting dark and about time to head back along the trail to the motel. I must have been coming pretty close to the nest of the Savannah Sparrows because one of them put on a pretty good attention-getting wing flapping display as it tried to decoy me to follow it along the trail. Of course, it was going my way so I followed the decoy maneuver :-).
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Binocular selection for Bird Watching at Amazon
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