sometimes they come to you

 I had to sleep all day today and when I got up it was warm and windy.  I spent a couple hours weeding garlic mustard in the park next to my house thinking I might come across one of the elusive catbirds or rose-breasted grosbeak or May thrushes that were blowing up my eBird needs alerts while I slept.

No luck there, but karma rewarded my efforts when I looked out the window after dinner and saw a young Summer Tanager following an oriole to the oranges on my feeder.

It sat long enough for me to grab the camera that lives in front of the window, blast half a dozen frames, realize the settings were completely buggered, crank the ISO up, blast another 5 frames ... and gone.  I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've encountered Summer Tanager in Michigan without actively seeking it out and maybe once where I didn't find it by hearing it first.

A few other pics from mornings earlier in the week.  This parula would have been a sweet pic if it had poked its head out a little further.

And this Black and White would have been fun if it had come into the redbud in the foreground

This Solitary Sandpiper in the stream at Kesling though was a decidedly more photogenic setting than their typical poop pond habitats.

And finally a montage of a kestrel that hovered in front of me in the dunes while hawk-watching earlier in the week...