Adventures in Birding

#170 & 171

I plan a lot of my birding outings to coincide with my job, which takes me all over my county. I had a property inspection near a body of water. I left early so I could stop and watch for water birds. We just had what was left of the tropical storm pass through, so that can be a good time to catch migratory waterfowl. I was in luck, because I spotted #170, Great Egret  , which was also a lifer for me!

I also got a photo of a very cooperative juvenile Spotted Sandpiper  .

This morning I saw a new bird that confounded me for a bit. It looked similar to a House Finch but with some yellow on its wings. House Finches can have a yellow variant (they're normally a raspberry-red) but it also had darker streaking. I posted a photo on a bird ID FB page, and found they were #171, Pine Siskins  !

Pine Siskins are one of my tricky species. I try to get them every year and mostly I don't see them. They don't typically stay in the same place year after year, they're mostly a Winter species in PA and they don't look all that distinct. When I submitted my sighting to Ebird, they actually flagged it as rare and I had to add a comment explaining my sighting! I think this pair just showed up early for whatever reason. Actually, I'm sure I had at least one of them yesterday feeding with a group of American Goldfinches. At the time, I thought it was a juvenile Goldfinch!

Some other photos from this week:

Field Sparrow  

Red-tailed Hawk  

Common Yellowthroat  

Palm Warbler