Visit to Vermont and the Berkshires

We drove to Vermont for mum's race and stopped by the Birds of Vermont Museum on the way home.

I met Bob Spear himself! He carved all the beautiful birds in the museum.

I drew one of my favourite birds for the Art Contest - the Great Horned Owl.

                                                  And I won!! Yay!!

Here are some links to the website:
Birds of Vermont Museum Annual Art Contest
Click here to see my drawing! (4th from top and 4th from left)
And click here for the 2009 results

We also stopped by the Berkshires to stretch our legs and bird watch, of course.

Eastern Phoebe

Hairy woodpecker

White-throated sparrow

Red finch

Mountain Blue Bird

Song Sparrow

Little Song Birds

Warblers are difficult to see....even harder to identify..... but most of all, difficult to photograph.
They are tiny and hop all over the place.

Here are some warblers my dad finally managed to get pics of (after a really long time!)

Yellow-rumped warbler

Yellow-rumped warbler at plum island, MA

Black-throated green warbler (Habitat, Belmont, MA)

Now you can see the black throat!

Spring is the time the warblers come out to play. We saw more...but they were just too frisky to be photographed!

West Coast Birds of North America

There were so many amazing birds on our trip to California. And so very different! I had to look them all up in the Field Guides we borrowed from the library.

Black skimmer

Black skimmers in action. Cool!

Common Tern

Elegant Tern

Foster's Tern

Heerman gull

Killdeers (so cute! They are getting endangered in the East)

Least Sandpipers

Long-billed Curlew

Marbled Godwit

Willet

Sanderlings

Double-crested Cormorants

Pelagic Cormorant

Clark's grebes

Pied-billed Grebe (so teeny!)

Snowy Egret

Surf Scoter

 If I've named them wrongly, please let me know!

Ducks! Ducks! Ducks!

Ducks are a beginning birder's best friends. They are colourful and pretty. You can learn binoculars skills and how to photograph them because they won't fly away. After all, they are sitting ducks!

Ringed Neck Ducks (Duxbury, MA)

Male Northern Shoveller (Central Park, NYC) 

His wife, female Northern Shoveller

Female ruddy duck (Fresh Pond, Cambridge)

Her husband, male ruddy duck (Central Park, NYC)

 

Bufflehead husband and wife (Central Park, NYC)



American Coot (Duxbury, MA)

American wigeon (Plum Island, MA)



Green winged Teal (Plum island, MA)



Male wood duck (Muddy River, Brookline, MA)

His wife, female wood duck (Muddy Pond, MA)

 And my all-time fav........ (*drum roll*)

Female Hooded Mergenser

Her husband Hooded Merganser (Fresh Pond, Cambridge)

Husband & wife team having a great time!

My first raptor

I LOVE raptors!!

My first hawk encounter was with the most common hawk in North America......

 Guess who??

The Red-tailed Hawk!!

Great Adventures at the..... POND!!??!!

When I first went birding at Leverett Pond, I noticed that the ducks kept swimming away. Even though they were far away from me, whenever I moved nearer, they would turn in the opposite direction. Dad tried hiding in the bushes and creeping towards them. But they were far too clever for him! They saw him a mile away!! We only managed to take pictures of their backs.

We finally decided that ducks had fantastic eyesight and could spot humans a great distance away. We only saw them properly with a pair of binoculars. It was great when dad got a spotting scope. Then, we really saw them!  

 Sis & I birding at Jamaica Pond

Male hooded meganser (weird but beautiful! My fav duck :))

Backyard Birds

I never really, REALLY looked at birds until I started bird-watching. Then I realised we never actually appreciate how gorgeous birds right in our backyard are.

We stayed outside Boston city with 2 ponds and many gardens surrounding us. These are pics of some common but pretty birds in our backyard:

Mum nicknames me "chickadee-dee-dee" because like me, it's small and adorable!

European Starling

Male Mallard

Male American Black Duck

Great Blue Heron (he lives at the pond. He's always there!)

A pair of Northern Flickers

American Robin (the commonest bird around)