In the interest of staying a little more current with my images, here are some I took a couple weeks back of an Indigo bunting seen along the shore near Lockeport. I assume it's a juvenile since an adult should have had a full compliment of indigo plumage by this time of year.
I didn't have a lot of luck photographing Harlequins this year. The ocean is a big body of water so it's not always easy to get close without jeopardizing your equipment or yourself. Other than the earlier shots on the rocks these were the best I could do.
A sure sign that Spring is here is when the Robins show up in numbers and all the lawns are snow free and the ground has thawed enough for the earthworms to come to the surface. Although I haven't taken photos of Robins pulling worms out the ground this year, here are a couple of portraits.
The herons should soon be returning in large numbers towards the end of March and into April. These images are from October when there were still a fair number of birds in the area. I took these on a day I was trying to photograph Wood Ducks.
This bird was feeding on bugs in the seaweed for a few days in November at the same location. If I happened to scare it I knew it would be back shortly to feed if I was patient and didn't move around too much.
Like the subject of the last post this is the first time in two years since I was able to photograph this species. Although I saw a small number last season I wasn't able to approach them. I have some photos from Christmas day 2023 but the light wasn't as favourable as it was this day in mid January.
Interestingly the purple sheen that apparently the birds name comes from is only seen in their Winter plumage which is when we see them on our shores. It's fairly apparent in the bird in the third photo.
This is the first Snowy Owl I have photographed in the last two years and also the only one I've seen in that time span. I haven't seen another since. These were taken back in early January.
Around the same time as the Snow Bunting images were taken and at the same location I was also able to photograph a few American Pipits.
This has been a particularly good year for photographing Snow Buntings unlike last Winter. I have seen them often this year in some sizable flocks at times. These images are from earlier in the season, I have taken shots more recently as well.
Somebody asked if I had seen any Gadwalls this year and I replied that I hadn't, that they tend to show up a little later in the Winter. That has been my experience in the locations I frequent. Checking last years photos I discovered I took these on March 11. So I will hopefully get another chance at photographing them before the end of Winter again this year.
I have to go back to early Autumn for these images, before the hunting season opened. These birds are gone now and I won't see them again until early Spring unless a few were brave enough to over Winter.
