Swamp Sparrow

The month of April has been full of work, rainy weekends and the first signs of spring migration. On each Friday I would drive home tired from the week and consider my bird watching options. How tired am I? Can I muster myself out of bed either morning of the weekend early enough for some birdwatching? What is the weather going to be? Is it going to rain again? Do I want to go somewhere local or is it time for a trip out to Shenandoah? Is there any house work that simply cannot be ignored any longer?

In April, I was always tired by Friday, but never too tired. It rained a lot, but not constantly. And I did not make any trips out to Shenandoah (I think I will do that next weekend). Instead, I visited Dutch Gap Conservation Area (DGCA) on three successive weekends.

You might think that visiting the same place three weekends in a row would get old. It probably would, if the visits were not in the spring. I have walked the same exact two miles each weekend, and seen lots of the same stuff each time. But I have also noticed changes each time. In my first trip, there were no American Redstarts. Today, American Redstarts were everywhere. The number of White-throated Sparrows that I see each week is less and less as they move north. And it seems like there are dragonflies and butterflies everywhere.

So, here is the first in a series of pictures from my trips to DGCA in April. On the 13th I saw several Swamp Sparrows at various points of my hike. This particular specimen took a few moments to scan its surroundings from the convenient perch of a fallen tree. While it scanned, I found my photographic opportunity.

Cedar Waxwing

I think Waxwings are beautiful birds. I have never seen a Bohemian Waxwing, but every time I see a Cedar Waxwing I have to stop, stare and just soak up their look. With their smooth appearance, the black bandit mask, crest and that little bit of yellow on the end of their tail, they look more like some artist's creation than just another bird.

A few Sundays back, Tammy and I checked out a local park called Deep Bottom Park (pdf) just to see how developed it was. It is primarily a boat launch. Other than one very short trail, there is really not much there. We did check out the trail and were pleased to discover a flock of Cedar Waxwings in the trees eating some kind of berry (maybe wild grapes?). They ate berries and were happy. We took pictures and were happy. We all were happy.

Eastern Tailed-Blue

When I visited DGCA a few weeks ago, you could feel spring about to happen. My first Yellow-throated Warbler of the year had arrived. Eastern Bluebirds and Tree Swallows were checking out potential nest sites. And there were lots of bugs to be seen. At one point I laid my backpack on the ground so that I could change lenses on my camera and inspect a nest of Eastern Tent Caterpillars. Almost immediately I noticed three or four little blue-gray butterflies flying about and landing on my backpack. They also had a couple orange spots on the trailing end of their wings, and one tiny tail on each wing. When I got back home I used my copy of Kaufman's Field Guide to Butterflies of North America to identify what I had photographed. At first I thought it was some kind of Hairstreak. None really matched, so I looked at the Blues next. The Eastern Tailed-Blue seemed to match my photograph perfectly.

Red-shouldered Hawk

I live in a small house on the northern edge of the suburbia associated with Richmond, Virginia. My house is situated on a small lot right next to an interstate highway. When you walk out of my backyard, you are in a thin strip of trees next to the interstate. The sounds of cars and trucks whizzing and thumping past is constant (you get used to it :-).

My nearness to such a significant bit of humanity's infrastructure has set my expectations fairly low when it comes to the number of, and variety of, bird species that I might see from my backyard. A visit from a hawk is always a pleasant surprise.

A few weeks back (the first Sunday in March) I was in my house when I noticed the call of a Red-shouldered Hawk. I realized that it was fairly close, so I grabbed my camera and crept out onto the deck behind my house to see if I could catch a photo or two. I immediately located the hawk, perched in a tree in my neighbor's yard. He saw me too, and took flight before I could even raise my camera.

Instead of soaring away and leaving me a frustrated photographer, however, he circled a few times, and then came back to roost in the same tree. How lucky for me! I snapped a bunch of photos before he took flight once more. The results are below. Here are three photos of a Red-shouldered Hawk: one facing away, one facing towards and one in flight.