New Bird!

It's been a long time since I added a Life Bird (new species for me) to the list, but last week it happened -- hoorah!  On Wednesday, the news got around that a Northern Parula was seen at Horn Rapids Park, and I rushed out there to take a look.

The park has hundreds of acres of trees -- with lots of very tall cottonwoods, which the Parula liked to hang out in, way at the tops.  It's a 4-inch warbler that doesn't like to sit still, and though there were several other birders looking, none of us could find it.  Sigh. 

However, there were other nice birds there, including this roosting Common Nighthawk:

And there were some fun insects as well, like this Green Darner dragonfly:

Here is a Black-chinned Hummingbird:

At the entrance kiosk, there were Cliff Swallow nests:

I got momentarily excited when I saw a flash of yellow with a dark top far away and high up, but it turned out to be the much bigger Bullock's Oriole:

The Northern Parula is half that size and looks like this (NOT my photo):

I went back out there on Thursday morning, and after an hour of searching, another birder and I spotted something small flitting about in the tree tops, and then for two glorious seconds, the bird flew down to a lower branch and perched long enough for us to get very clear views. And then, of course, just as I lowered by binocs and picked up the camera, it zipped off, never to be found again.  Sigh. 

Oh, well.  I'm very happy I got to see, however briefly, such a lovely and quite rare visitor to our area.  And I got to meet some very nice fellow birders. 

Meanwhile, back home, Truman and Pippin waited patiently for me to find the stoopid bird and do something useful, like take them for a walk.

Good dogs!

Have a good week, and stay safe out there!