Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Slow progress

I havn't had a whole lot lately of bloggable interest.  I've been trying to find shorebird spots within biking distance of my house but all the ones from last year are either drained or cornfields.  My stops at the AU Dairy have rarely found any shorebirds, to say nothing of uncommon ones.  I've made a few trips to Tiscornia, mainly by car, hoping to get more pics of terns on the beach as I've become suspicious that I've been mis-calling some of the adult terns for going on 3 years now, but the tern flock has been offshore each time I've been there.

This morning I was able to go down below the house in late morning (the work schedule has had a whole lot of 3am endpoints lately making it hard to get up early) and didn't find much in the way of warblers.  I did, however, pick up a Bigby bird, with a flyover osprey, a bird I've been hoping to eventually see cruising down the river.  I saw them somewhat regularly when I fished the river my first summer here, but with 2 kids now, I haven't even gotten a license the last 2 years.  The osprey was #210 for the Bigby year.  At this point I expect to end up with probably mid 220's depending on how the next 6 weeks go and how hard I try at the end of the year to dredge up last ditch birds like northern shrike once it's cold again.  I still have about 6 birds that are basically gimmes and we'll see what Tiscornia brings in terms of the rest.  

The only workable pic I got this morning was this pewee, I was just too slow on a young magnolia that went right to the branch I expected, but was still too late getting set up for a digi-scoped view.

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