Birding Time-Warblers and Other Songbirds

Blackburnian Warbler

Spent Saturday June 15 birding with friend James Hoyson in the morning and wife Joan in afternoon.  Area of concentration was Lackawanna State Forest-a new area for me.  It was a productive day--the song birds were singing and we had nice light with the diffused sun rays in the forest. I used D800, D4 and Nikon 600 through the day with some shots I used a flash with better beamer for shadow fill. 

Canada Warbler

Scarlet Tanager

Scarlet Tanager

Black Throated Green Warbler

Black throated Blue Warbler

Had been busy so pictures from our trip to Pine Creek with friends Gary and Kim Amatrudo had not been posted.  Here are some highlights from that trip.

Common Merganser family

Baltimore Oriole

Rain drops on Dame's Rocket

Chipmunk

Common Yellowthroat

Water Lily

Great Blue Heron

Red Eye Vireo

Female Red Wing Black Bird

Yellow Swallowtail

Rhododendron

Until Next Time

Jim Borden

Shore Birds

Osprey with fish

Joan and I traveled to Connecticut to spend times with friends Gary and Kim Amatrudo photographing Shore Birds.  They chauffeured us around and we had the opportunity to see many species of birds even though it was a cold and windy weekend.  I added a life bird to my list-Little Blue Heron. 

Little Blue Heron at Hammonsett Beach CT

Willet in Breeding Plumage

Osprey in Flight

Osprey landing

Mallard in Flight

Osprey on Fairly new nest

Least Sandpiper

Snowy Egret

Great Egret

Until Next Time

Jim Borden

Immature Great Horned Owls

We have had Great Horned Owls near us for years.  I shared photos of an adult last August.  We looked this winter for the owls and their nest and were not successful.  This past week we saw one of the adults and heard the young bill snapping.  Later that evening I went back out and found two young ones. 

Until next time

Jim Borden

Local Screech Owl

Our neighbor called one evening and said he had owls in his barn.  He said he thought they were barn owls.  Just as we arrived a Barn Owl flew from the barn and flew across the field to the woods.  We thought we had missed the opportunity but went in the barn for a look.  There sat a little screech owl!  he posed for us and then continued his nap :)

Until Next time

Jim Borden

Boreal Owl and Gray Partridge

Boreal Owl

I traveled back to Ontario Canada for the third time in a month in search of owls and other birds of the North.  Thanks to contacts in Ottawa (Wilson Hum and Bruce Di Labio ) I was able to add the Boreal Owl to my life list.  The cute little bird was nestled in a cluster of spruce trees.  I had to crawl back into the center of the cluster to get a clear shot of the owl.  It was not at all disturbed by our presence.  As there is still much controversy about flash photography and owls, I prefer not to use any form of fill flash on them.  Therefore, the low light capability of the Nikon D4 body came in real handy.  I shot from tripod with Nikon D4 and Nikon 300 f4 lens at f7.1 with a shutter speed of 1/320 and ISO 4000.  Even using f7.1, the depth of field at this subject distance did not allow for the full depth of field of the owl (notice out of focus feathers at back of head).   I watched as others attempted to shoot handheld with cameras incapable of clean images at this lighting due to elevated ISO.  My point is that the camera does not do the shooting and we have to do the framing, composition and get exposure right and teh higher technology camera bodies add a tool to our toolbox to allow us to get images we would not otherwise get. 

The owl opened its eyes slightly and looked as a lady fumbled in the 18 to 20 inches of snow to get to see the owl.  We retreated from the area to let the owl alone. 

Gray Partridge

I toured the area in search of other owls and birds. I was out looking for snowy owls when I came upon four Gray Partridge running around on top of the snow.  I saw two more Great Gray Owls near dark and the setting was terrible for getting good images-so I sat and enjoyed their presence.  I look forward to returning to the north country next winter. 

Until next time

Jim Borden

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More Life List Birds

Northern Hawk Owl

On February 22 I returned to Ontario Canada with long time friend and awesome birder Joe Demarco. we met friends Chris White and Bob Adamowicz in Ottawa to enjoy our outdoor experience together.   We were initially looking for Northern Hawk Owl, Great Gray Owl, Saw Whet Owl and Boreal Owl to add to Joe's life list.  The first afternoon we were successful at finding a Northern Hawk Owl near a location where Joan and I had seen one three weeks before.  We watched teh owl for about an hour and then moved on to potential snowy owl areas and found none of them.  As the afternoon drew to a close we traveled to where Joan and I had seen 4 Great Gray Owls.  Joan was able to spot one and we watched it until almost dark sitting on a perch occluded by branches.

We returned to teh spot prior to daylight and found the owl perched in a much more viewable position. The liught snow falling made for an awesome image.

Great Gray Owl

We had heard about Bohemian Waxwings, gray partridge, Barrow's Golden Eye , Pine Warblers and Black Back Woodpeckers being in the area so off we went in search of these birds.  We found teh Bohemian Waxwings perched in a tree in a downtown residential section of Ottawa.  beautiful bird and they provided us with no photo opportunities.  From there we traveled a short distance to a marshy area and sighted another great Gray Owl-what a beautiful and majestic bird!  We stopped at a parking area and hiked back along a trail that was overhung by trees loaded with snow-a really pretty walk.  Chickadees were bombarding us as it turns out this is a favorite place for families to take their children to hand feed teh Black Capped Chickadees.  It was truly wonderful to watch. 

We left the trail for a short distance in a burned out area and soon we had spotted the female Black Back Woodpecker hammering away on a tall tree. It was interesting to watch the bird hammer away at the tree and strip chunks of bark from the tree.  We also spotted hairy Woodpeckers in the same area.

Female Black Back Woodpecker

We spent the remainder of the afternoon looking for Snowy Owls. We finally located one sitting on top of an upturned stump in a farmer's field south of Kanata.  It was a male and was quite far off and did not provide any suitable photo opportunities. 

An acquaintance in Ottawa alerted us to a spotting of a Boreal Owl. My cell phone was acting up so we did not get the messages until after dark on Saturday evening.  So on Sunday morning we headed off to the spot of the Boreal owl.  We found where it had been perched in a Cedar Tree the previous day-there were pellets and owl poop down the tree trunk.  A search of the area yielded another 6 or 8 trees where teh owl had previously perched. We toured the farm areas looking for more Snowy Owls but only saw crows, ravens, Horned Larks and Snow Buntings. We headed home about noon. We stopped in a place near Syracuse NY where I know a Saw Whet Owl has been seen.  We found once again fresh perch areas but did not see the owl. 

It was a fun and enjoyable trip! 

Red Squirrel along Lime Kiln Trail

Until Next Time

Jim Borden

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Great Gray Owls

Full Frame 600MM image at about 50 feet

Joan and I traveled to Ontario Canada last weekend to view and photograph Great Gray Owls.  This is an irruption year for this species and there are quite a few of the owls in Ontario.  Irruptions are about 4 to 7 years apart and this is teh largest irruption in a long time.  We saw 4 of the Great Gray Owls where we were visiting.  We also got to see a Northern Hawk Owl.  We were fortunate enough to see the owls feeding one day. 

Great Gray coming along ground searching for food

Great Gray Owl getting ready to attack a mouse

Great Gray Owl with Breakfast

Great Gray Owl resting on stub at end of day

Coming in for Landing

until next time

Jim Borden

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