May 29th, 2011: Sunday

Sunny, hot; about 86. 

For a change of pace today Wendy and I went to Arnold Arboretum.  I had not been there for a month, so I decided to see what was happening.  The Yellow Warblers I saw there were actually what inspired me to get the 55-250mm lens on my camera, as the 18-50 I had was not cutting it for capturing pictures of such a tiny bird.

                The path, I think it was called Willow Path that we usually go down to head across the marsh was supposedly closed due to a wall collapse.  We went down it anyway, like bosses.  Right away we saw a bunch of birds bathing in the stream; Catbirds, doves, house sparrows, and there were also goldfinches everywhere.  The catbird at right is not actually having a violent seizure, it’s enjoying the cold water.  Not a bad idea considering how humid and hazy it was out.  It was pretty disgusting in retrospect.  Wearing a thick polo shirt with jeans probably wasn’t the best call I’ve ever made, but I survived. 

                We made our way out to the path that cuts across the marsh and holy cow had that thing grown over since the last time we went.  Wendy commented that it looked like we were cutting a swath through a jungle as we went through.  There were brambles all across the path, so in that regard wearing jeans was a good decision.  We were serenaded as we went through by a Song Sparrow and a Red-Winged Blackbird that was making lazy circles around us and singing from the cat tails.  Wendy likes Red-Wings quite a bit, the red on their shoulders impresses her.  As we cut across the marsh we were accosted by a few bees, but other than that we escaped unscathed.  As we reached the other side I heard the Yellow Warbler calling and decided to see if I could get a few decent pictures.  I literally took 100 pictures of it, and sorted them when I got home.  A large amount of them were crystal clear, which is nice considering the last few times I’ve gone out I have not been able to get the type of photograph I’m used to taking.  Here’s a few of them, but first another shot of the Red-Wing:

I like this shot because I got the tail flaring out.

 And now for some Yellow-Warbler

Here are a bunch more shots of the Warbler. I’m very happy with how they turned out.

 

Why are you looking at me like that? Is there something on my beak?

As we wended on down the road after rejoining civilization and continued on deeper into the Arboretum we actually came across a couple of Brown-Headed Cowbirds. I have not seen any cowbirds since I came to Boston, in fact I had remarked about this about 15 minutes prior to running into this pair. 

These ones appeared to be particularly tame.  They let us approach quite closely, although they did appear perturbed, they let us get quite close.  These shots are probably the clearest I have taken with this lens and camera.  They tottered about for a while in the grass before eventually flying off, and Wendy and I carried on. 

                We kept going, and eventually button-hooked down this other path, apparently a vine garden was towards the end of the path.  I have never seen so many lilacs in one place before, off to the side of the path that leads down to the vine garden.  At the base of one of the bushes was a male Yellow-Shafted Flicker that I got several good pictures of.  Wendy got some pictures too; it was the first Flicker she had seen.  So that’s always positive. Below is a picture of the Flicker.  

              

  We carried on through the vine-garden and at this point I had a brief but awful allergy attack, not sure why.  I saw a Northern Mockingbird as we entered the vine garden.   It’s worth noting because I have not seen a ton of them this year.  Not sure where they’re all going or if it’s something ecological happening.  Now here are some pictures of flowers:

As we left here’s another picture of a Red-Wing that I snapped off,  it looks like it was about to making a bombing run on someone.  All in all it was a great day of bird watching, the pictures came out great, and Wendy liked the vine garden quite a bit. I think she wants a vine garden in her yard someday.  Not a bad thing to have I must say.  I will be returning here again at some point to walk the other trails and see what nature has in store for me then.