Wrens, Warblers and more...8/29/2009

Inspite of the gloomy start to Saturday morning I decided to take a ride out to Pte. Mouillee. First I traveled down Campau Road to look and listen for activity. If you've ever been down this road you know that there are a couple bridges that cross inlets. The first one to the right has a lot of greenery growing and nothing was there. The second bridge however had an Egret standing in front of the log that sits in the center where three young Wood Ducks are just biding their time. About midway between the road and the log there are about six just doing nothing. I tried to get a photo of these guys but because of the gray skies I just couldn't get them in focus. The last bridge is just before you reach the gate to the HQ and on the left side there are a couple of adults and quite a few young Wood Ducks. They were in the shadows so no real good photo there either.

The tree to the right of the gate has a lot of activity so I drove through to the waters edge and then parked just before passing back through the gate. "Patience is definitely a virtue" for birding and it seems these days I have more for the birds than I do for people. I sat and watched every movement of the branches - not just in the tree but in the bushes that are in that little horse-shoe shaped driveway. The Black-capped Chickadees are just "chicka-dee-dee -dee" their way back and forth. There's a Warbling Vireo jumping around in the branches "come on baby just a little closer to the edge". Well he didn't get all the way to the edge but he tried.

In the bushes to my right while looking a the tree there's a lot of movement. It pays to watch that jagged movement of the bushes - you never know what's going to pop out of it. The first movement I watched produced a squirrel - not far from that one popped a House Wren who was very cooperative. He looked this way and that - looked at me - then turned around so I could get the back view - then he was gone. In the bushes over just a little more was a Common Yellow-throat making it's way through the branches. After spending a couple hours there I decided to take a ride down to Roberts Road to see if there was any activity there.

Roberts Road was a very productive. The Great-crested Flycatchers were in abundance, just as the Cedar Waxwings were months before. The area was full of Baltimore Orioles, Warblers, Eastern Kingbirds, Goldfinch, Tanagers, Catbirds and more.

On Sunday I made the same trip - same route and had the opportunity to get some more photos of some of the birds I saw on Saturday and a few new ones. My time on Sunday was only two hours but in that time I took about 627 pictures (600 on Saturday).

My final shot for the day and my very first decent shot was this of an Osprey having breakfast in an old tree that sat off of Jefferson Road between Roberts Road and Campau Road.

Coming up next Labor day weekend and I'm heading north. Til my next post.