Day 19.139: It’s artificial anyway

This is your reminder that AI doesn’t always get it right:

No papercraft - intricate or otherwise - was used in that video. Or maybe it was and I didn’t have “intelligence” enough to detect it. 

Day 19.138: Memorial Day (part 2) birds

Here are some of  the birds we saw on our Memorial Day afternoon outing to Biddeford Pool including South Point Sanctuary and East Point Preserve.

Northern yellow warbler

Northern yellow warbler

Gray catbird

More common eiders with chicks

Eastern kingbird

House finch

Brown thrasher

Common eiders

Double-crested cormorant

Common tern

Double-crested cormorant

House finch

Great Snowy egret (almost unrecognizable with the naked-eye with its neck so retracted)

Much easier when it extended it again

Day 19.137: Memorial Day outing (part 2)

After our soggy outing first thing on Monday morning, we had resigned ourselves to an indoor day, but the sun came out in the early afternoon, and we decided to go out again to the same area. This time, Exile #4 joined us.

We saw some birds, but here are some of the other things we saw:

The beach steaming in the surprise sunshine

A few hardy beach visitors

Sea pea

Some impressive waves

Northern crescent

Apple blossom

Some Irish moss and a piece of (red pine?) bark

Some very orange wood (we think it's a piece of pine root)

Day 19.136: Birding in the rain

Yesterday was Memorial Day and the weather in the Northeast was fairly miserable. Various Memorial Day parades were canceled. Our local one went ahead, but the High School band was limited to brass instruments only for their rain-soaked march.

Before all that, however, Exile #2 and I went for an early morning birding trip to South Point Sanctuary in Biddeford Pool. It was rather rainy but we had some success.

Tree swallow

Black-crowned night heron

Mallard arrival

In the woodland part of the sanctuary we didn't see too many birds - but a few nice sightings:

Common yellowthroat

American redstart

On the beach, it was another matter altogether - so much action:

Black-bellied plover (a.k.a. grey plover)

Bonaparte's gull

Ruddy turnstone

Semipalmated plover

Song sparrow

Black scoters (there were about 200 of them)

Semipalmated sandpiper

Ruddy turnstones

Eastern kingbird

Piping plover

Piping plover

Common eiders with chicks (quite early)

As I was looking at the eiders, there was a major commotion - shorebirds taking flight in large numbers. I wondered if a dog had arrived - but it turned out to be a hawk. It amused me that having tried and failed to catch a shorebird, it landed on the informational sign about them looking a bit soggy.

Cooper's hawk

Day 19.135: Half-century

On Saturday, our nature group had set out to see 50 species of birds in a three hour visit to Rotary Park in Biddeford. In the end we reached that "half-century" with the black vultures around the two hour mark and went on to total 56 species. Here are some more photos from a very camera-friendly morning.

Northern cardinal

Song sparrow

Wood ducks

We watched two Baltimore orioles chasing crows away across the river

These cedar waxwings were passing an unripe fruit back and forth for a while

Eventually, one of them flew away and the other dropped it unceremoniously

Turkey vulture

Not a great photo, but it was my first blackpoll warbler of the year

Red-eyed vireo (with visibly red eye)

Better photo, but eye looks black

Chestnut-sided warbler

Brown thrasher

Eastern bluebird

American redstart

Gray catbird

Broad-winged hawk (with some missing flight feathers)

Hairy woodpecker (rare to see it foraging on the ground)

Maybe being a new parent explains some odd behavior

Spotted sandpiper

Great crested flycatcher