This weekend I went to Sparta Wisconsin for some bike riding and unfortunately I didn't get in hardly any bird watching. So my only outing to PLP this weekend was on late Sunday afternoon. Though the temp was in the mid to upper 70's, it was still humid and very much feels like Summer in the first week of September. I was hoping to see some new Warblers passing through today and indeed I did. I actually spotted 5 different Warblers including Common Redstart (female), Common Yellowthroat, a Tennessee Warbler, a Magnolia Warbler and my favorite, a Black and White Warbler! Of all these however, I didn't get a single photo as the majority of them were high up in the treetops picking insects off the leaves. I was lucky enough to even have spotted them briefly using my binoculars.
Some other things I did get photos of were this Monarch Butterfly on the south east corner. Here there is usually a large field of wildflowers that was recently mostly mowed down. I'm not sure which party is responsible, or why they decided to do so, but mowing over all these wild plants effectively destroyed a ton of food sources for many birds and insects. In addition to the Warblers listed above, I saw quite a few other birds today including; Blue Jays, Cardinals, a Brown Thrasher, Chickadees, lots of Robins, Mallards, Wood Ducks, an Eastern Phoebe, a Least Flycatcher, a Green Heron, Goldfinches, Cedar Waxwings, Canada Geese and two female Rose-breasted Grosbeaks.
These I spotted again on the north side along the trail in some thick Buckthorn trees. I've not seen a male Grosbeak for quite a while now which makes me wonder if the males start migrating before the females. When I got to the footbridge over Shingle Creek, I spotted one last bird –a Belted Kingfisher. It was squawking loudly and actually flew under the bridge below me to perch on a recently fallen tree over the creek. Since I've not caught a decent photo of this somewhat infrequent visitor, I figured it should be easy to hike upstream and get closer for a better shot. But every time I got anywhere near the Kingfisher it would fly further upstream and perch again.
This repeated a few times before I finally lost sight of him. I was totally bummed and the Kingfisher remains elusive to my camera lens still at Palmer Lake Park.
Some other things I did get photos of were this Monarch Butterfly on the south east corner. Here there is usually a large field of wildflowers that was recently mostly mowed down. I'm not sure which party is responsible, or why they decided to do so, but mowing over all these wild plants effectively destroyed a ton of food sources for many birds and insects. In addition to the Warblers listed above, I saw quite a few other birds today including; Blue Jays, Cardinals, a Brown Thrasher, Chickadees, lots of Robins, Mallards, Wood Ducks, an Eastern Phoebe, a Least Flycatcher, a Green Heron, Goldfinches, Cedar Waxwings, Canada Geese and two female Rose-breasted Grosbeaks. 
These I spotted again on the north side along the trail in some thick Buckthorn trees. I've not seen a male Grosbeak for quite a while now which makes me wonder if the males start migrating before the females. When I got to the footbridge over Shingle Creek, I spotted one last bird –a Belted Kingfisher. It was squawking loudly and actually flew under the bridge below me to perch on a recently fallen tree over the creek. Since I've not caught a decent photo of this somewhat infrequent visitor, I figured it should be easy to hike upstream and get closer for a better shot. But every time I got anywhere near the Kingfisher it would fly further upstream and perch again. 
This repeated a few times before I finally lost sight of him. I was totally bummed and the Kingfisher remains elusive to my camera lens still at Palmer Lake Park.
No comments:
Post a Comment