Sunday, at the Erie National Wildlife Refuge, we saw a Yellow Warbler up close and you really know spring is here when you see this pretty yellow bird flashing around the brush. It had reddish-rust streaks on its belly.
I believe this bird is an Eastern Wood PeeWee. * (See comment below. This has been identified by an expert as an Phoebe.) I’d like to be corrected if I’m wrong. I don’t want to go on believing it to be something it isn’t.
We also saw a Red-shouldered Hawk (at least we are pretty sure as with the binoculars is was reddish on the head and shoulder area and had a very distinct blackish barred pattern that reminded me of a woodpecker or sapsucker on its lower back and tail and was very large.) I got a bad picture of it as we were driving down the road.
Up near the park office we saw a Chipping Sparrow (the first time I’ve identified one instead of just recognizing them as a sparrow.) and a Killdeer. Below is the Killdeer clip.
We spotted the Bald Eagle flying and landing on the large pine tree at the end of the meadow/marsh. I watched him for quite a while through my spotting scope. We met very nice people from the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge near Rochester, NY that came down to see the eagles. We hope they take the advice we gave them to visit Presque Isle and Allegany State Park in NY also. We’ll have to take them up on visiting their area refuge.
There were some very pretty wildflowers alongside the road. We had a wonderful day.
I didn’t put the pictures together on purpose but I like the effect now that I see it.
3 responses so far ↓
1 toni // Apr 29, 2008 at 8:59 am
Linda this is such a fun time of year. We are getting better at identifying the birds. Hmm i will have to look up what flower that is. So much to learn.
2 mon@rch // Apr 29, 2008 at 9:27 pm
My guess is that it’s more a phoebe than a peewee by the habitat that its in (Wood Peewee’s are more of a forest species)! Also, another behavior of the Phoebe that you captured is it’s tail wagging!
3 linda // Apr 29, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Thanks! I initially thought it was a Phoebe because I thought I heard a song like one. But it didn’t look like the pictures in the book. I guess you have to consider habitat, too, in id-ing. I’ll correct this post.
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