Jeanette's Big Blog of Animals: The steamiest "spring" bird walk ever!

Today was the make-up walk for the AMNH spring walks. I got an early start, so I went around the upper lobe and into the ramble a bit before meeting up with the group. First I found this black crowned night heron, looking quite dapper at the side of the upper lobe.

Black-crowned Night Heron

There were waxwings everywhere!

Cedar Waxwing

In one of the meadows I saw this robin tending its nest. Robin babies do not wear diapers, so robin parents have to keep tidy in other ways. This robin is removing a sac of feces from the nest. And you thought cleaning your shower drain was gross! There is a fancy name for this, but I don't remember what it is.

American Robins

I also saw a flycatcher of some sort briefly. Not a kingbird, smaller, with a soft yellowish belly, definitely looked like a flycatcher. I tried to find it again to get a better look and a picture, but it continued to elude me. To be fair, I was distracted by the red-tailed hawk flying over. It was during this incident that I discovered my auto-focus was particularly slow today, and trying to focus on a circling hawk was too much for it. I have no idea why, or what setting has changed. Oh well, back to the search for the flycatcher........ no joy. It did manage to distract me until it was past time to head to meet the group. There's my irony for the day - being early to arrive and checking things out leads to being late to arrive! :-)

I barely had time to check on the robin's nest. At first I thought she was sitting on new eggs for a second brood, but....... is that another tail under her? Could that be one of the fledgelings? What is going on here?

American Robin on nest

More waxwings! They were really everywhere. We saw bunches, and heard many more than we saw.

Cedar Waxwing, lucky person view

A pretty dragonfly over azalea pond. I think that they eat mosquito larvae, which means that I love them.

Dragonfly

Bullfrog!

Bullfrog

This oriole was at the oven, looking like a teenager asleep in an embarrassing position after playing too many video games.

Baltimore Oriole

Here he is again, after realizing people are looking. Much more dignified! He looked around, shook himself off a bit, and flew off. Much like the same teenager would........

Baltimore Oriole

You won't believe what else - more waxwings! Here is the view we usually get, briefly.

Cedar Waxwing, normal view

There were also some house finches that came by, and we heard both a warbling vireo and a red-eyed vireo but we couldn't find either one. And egret flew over, quite majestically.