Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Insect photography
All of these were taken with my iPhone.
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| Spicebush Swallowtail |
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| Blue Dasher |
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| Sachem Skipper |
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| Sachem Skipper |
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| Some sort of Crane Fly I think |
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| Eastern Tailed-blue |
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| Leaf-footed Bug |
Saturday, January 9, 2016
DOS List Head Start Trip 1/9/16
Today was the annual 'List Head Start Trip', which goes all over the state searching for birds to add to your year list. This is the first time I have been able to go on this trip, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!
We started at Indian River Inlet at 9:00 AM. The very first species I saw when I stepped out of the car was a year bird: Bonaparte's Gull. A flock of ten flew along the inlet, and out into the bay. While I have seen them before, they were always mixed in with flocks of larger gulls, so it was nice to see them on their own. Also, I had never realized how tern-like they look in flight, and I nearly added them to my checklist as Forster's Terns before I took a closer look.
We birded around the south side jetty for about an hour, and I added several more species to my year list, the most notable being continuing Harlequin Duck and Common Eider. We then went over to the north side, where there was a large flock of gulls. There was nothing unusual in the flock, with the exception of a wing-tagged Herring Gull (I submitted it to the banding lab, and if I hear back from them I may do a post about it).
One of the birders from the group had stayed on the south side, and he came over to tell us that he had seen Marsh Wren, Sedge Wren, Nelson's Sparrow, and Seaside Sparrow in the marsh behind the campground. We decided to go see if we could find them, and successfully located all except the Sedge Wren. We did get a Saltmarsh Sparrow instead, which was nice, but I probably would have seen them later in the year. The Nelson's Sparrow was a lifer, but I'd already seen all of the others.
As we walked back to the car, someone shouted that there was a Glaucous Gull flying by the bridge, and we all frantically tried to see it. Gulls are my favorite family of birds, so I was thrilled to get my lifer (#278 on my list). We continued back to the cars, and got nice looks at some Bonaparte's Gulls swimming close to shore, then we loaded up and headed north to Silver Lake.
Once there, we got out and began scanning for Canvasback, and successfully located two of them. There was also a preening Lesser Black-backed Gull, some Hooded Mergansers, Ruddy Ducks, and a Mallard x Black Duck Hybrid. For a minute I thought that I had a Cackling Goose, as it was clearly smaller than the Canada it was swimming with, but someone pointed out that it was still larger than a Cackling should be, so I believe that it was just a small Canada.
We had intended to stop at Cape Henlopen, but because we had spent over 3 hours at Indian River, we no longer had time, so we continued north to Prime Hook. It was high tide, so there really wasn't much there, and my one new bird was a distant Black-bellied Plover.
Our final stop was Big Stone Beach at 3:00. Since we had skipped Cape Henlopen, this was our only chance to get Brown-headed Nuthatch. We spent about an hour walking along the road before finally locating four Nuthatches. A nearby Ruby-crowned Kinglet was rather unexpected, and while they aren't rare, they aren't extremely common either.
While everyone else was looking at the Nuthatches, I walked a bit further down the road and got Fish Crow, which had somehow eluded me until today.
We drove down to the beach, and saw a massive flock of gulls further down the shore. I had a bag of old bread and crackers, which we attempted to use to lure them in closer, but they ignored us for the most part, and the only one that came in close to us was an adult Herring Gull.
While walking through the marsh, we thought that we had found a Sedge Wren (which we hadn't seen earlier at IRI), and all gathered round to try to see it. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a Marsh Wren (still a good bird for January, though we had seen them earlier), and it was our last bird for the day, as it was getting dark. I entered my final ebird checklist as we drove home, and was happy to see that I had a total of 82 species for the year, exceeding my goal of 75 species for the month of January.
We started at Indian River Inlet at 9:00 AM. The very first species I saw when I stepped out of the car was a year bird: Bonaparte's Gull. A flock of ten flew along the inlet, and out into the bay. While I have seen them before, they were always mixed in with flocks of larger gulls, so it was nice to see them on their own. Also, I had never realized how tern-like they look in flight, and I nearly added them to my checklist as Forster's Terns before I took a closer look.
We birded around the south side jetty for about an hour, and I added several more species to my year list, the most notable being continuing Harlequin Duck and Common Eider. We then went over to the north side, where there was a large flock of gulls. There was nothing unusual in the flock, with the exception of a wing-tagged Herring Gull (I submitted it to the banding lab, and if I hear back from them I may do a post about it).
One of the birders from the group had stayed on the south side, and he came over to tell us that he had seen Marsh Wren, Sedge Wren, Nelson's Sparrow, and Seaside Sparrow in the marsh behind the campground. We decided to go see if we could find them, and successfully located all except the Sedge Wren. We did get a Saltmarsh Sparrow instead, which was nice, but I probably would have seen them later in the year. The Nelson's Sparrow was a lifer, but I'd already seen all of the others.
As we walked back to the car, someone shouted that there was a Glaucous Gull flying by the bridge, and we all frantically tried to see it. Gulls are my favorite family of birds, so I was thrilled to get my lifer (#278 on my list). We continued back to the cars, and got nice looks at some Bonaparte's Gulls swimming close to shore, then we loaded up and headed north to Silver Lake.
Once there, we got out and began scanning for Canvasback, and successfully located two of them. There was also a preening Lesser Black-backed Gull, some Hooded Mergansers, Ruddy Ducks, and a Mallard x Black Duck Hybrid. For a minute I thought that I had a Cackling Goose, as it was clearly smaller than the Canada it was swimming with, but someone pointed out that it was still larger than a Cackling should be, so I believe that it was just a small Canada.
We had intended to stop at Cape Henlopen, but because we had spent over 3 hours at Indian River, we no longer had time, so we continued north to Prime Hook. It was high tide, so there really wasn't much there, and my one new bird was a distant Black-bellied Plover.
Our final stop was Big Stone Beach at 3:00. Since we had skipped Cape Henlopen, this was our only chance to get Brown-headed Nuthatch. We spent about an hour walking along the road before finally locating four Nuthatches. A nearby Ruby-crowned Kinglet was rather unexpected, and while they aren't rare, they aren't extremely common either.
While everyone else was looking at the Nuthatches, I walked a bit further down the road and got Fish Crow, which had somehow eluded me until today.
We drove down to the beach, and saw a massive flock of gulls further down the shore. I had a bag of old bread and crackers, which we attempted to use to lure them in closer, but they ignored us for the most part, and the only one that came in close to us was an adult Herring Gull.
While walking through the marsh, we thought that we had found a Sedge Wren (which we hadn't seen earlier at IRI), and all gathered round to try to see it. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a Marsh Wren (still a good bird for January, though we had seen them earlier), and it was our last bird for the day, as it was getting dark. I entered my final ebird checklist as we drove home, and was happy to see that I had a total of 82 species for the year, exceeding my goal of 75 species for the month of January.
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