Thursday, February 23, 2012

AMNH Winter Walk with Paul


What a day!  It was crazy gorgeous weather - 56 and sunny.  Wait, what happened to winter?  We started out going up towards the theater and found this Eastern towhee along the way:
Eastern Towhee

We also saw a Cooper's hawk flying over briefly, I guess it saw my camera and took evasive action.  We swung by turtle pond, where there were buffleheads!  
Buffleheads

Continuing on, we came to a little area with lots of birds.  White-throated sparrows, this white-breasted nuthatch:
White-breasted Nuthatch

A red-bellied woodpecker was flying all around us, calling, zipping from tree to tree.  Then we saw this red-tailed hawk watching over the area with interest.  I wonder if the hawk made the woodpecker nervous?
Red-tailed Hawk
A bunch of tufted titmouses (titmice?) came through, they are so cute!  Seeing a titmouse always cheers me up.
Tufted Titmouse

As we were trying to follow the red-bellied woodpecker, this brown creeper came over to distract us:
Brown Creeper
This yellow-bellied sapsucker along with a downy that was too fast for me convinced us that this was a popular location with woodpeckers!  Finally we moved on to the reservoir.
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Grebe!  This pied-billed grebe might look like she's flirting with me, but she actually seemed to shift nervously away.  So pretty.
Pied-billed Grebe

Ruddy ducks!  A few beaks are turning blue.  I hope they stick around until we get to see some ~really~ blue beaks, they are hilarious and awesome.  I mean, who wouldn't want to see a cute little duck with a blue beak?!
Ruddy Duck

Shovelers!
Northern Shoveler

Hooded merganser!
Hooded Merganser

Coot!
American Coot

Yes, it was a good day at the reservoir, that's for sure.  After that it was back to the museum, where we stopped off to see the hummingbird.
Rufous Hummingbird

The whole walk was delicious!  :-)
Rufous Hummingbird