Skywatch Friday 7/10/09

Rainbow over Rangeley Lake

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Maine trip, Pt 1 - Claybrook Mountain Lodge

For my last few posts, I have been referring to a vacation that Pamela and I took last week. It started on Sunday, June 28th, where we headed up to the Claybrook Mountain Lodge in Highland Plantation, ME. Along the way we made a stop at Lake Messalonskee in Belgrade in hopes of putting the kayaks in for a little while. Unfortunately, as we arrived, the first drops of what would be a regular on-and-off rain started to fall. We satisfied ourselves with some mid-range looks at the Black Terns there, and continued on our way to the lodge, where we our friends, Eddie, Mark, Laura, and a group of other birders from the Brookline Bird Club - as well as Pat, our hostess at the Lodge who met us with homemade cookies and fresh fruit. As we waited for the rest of our group to arrive, we birded the grounds and the road near the lodge, where we saw the first of several pairs of Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers.


Once everybody arrived we headed out as a group to explore some local spots, including a very reliable spot for snipe. We were able to hear a pair winnowing almost upon stepping out of the car, but the rain soon drove us back to the cover of our vehicles. As we were turning the vehicles around, we noticed that the rain-grounded snipe were not on the ground at all!
On returning to the lodge, we had our first amazing meal from our hosts, and many of us stayed up chatting, playing cards, telling bird tales and generally catching up. That evening, while a few of us were still up and hanging out on the enclosed porch, the light drew in a large moth, which turned out to be a beautiful Polyphemus Moth:
And speaking of moths, the next morning there were a pair of Blinded Hawk Moths roosting on the screen in the hall window near where a light had been left on overnight.

Over the next few days, we travelled to various places in the area, often guided by our host Greg, who knows the area very well, and is an excellent naturalist. We explored logging roads and trails (including winding down a questionable dirt road when a bridge was out - great job driving Greg!) looking for boreal specialties like Gray Jay and Spruce Grouse (tho' I missed that one) as well as warblers that were singing on territory like Blackburnian & Mourning.
Although not a great photo, it was probably my best looks at this skulking bird to that point. The next day we would get even better looks, with a bird perched up and singing for a few minutes at a time. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera with me, as we were hiking up a small mountain, the weather was questionable, and I had broken the shutter release on the camera the day before and I had become a bit disgusted with it. (Thankfully, I was able to work around it for the rest of the trip.) One day we did have a bit of sun, and during that time, a few dragonflies also made their appearance. As I was slowly approaching this Beaverpond Baskettail, it flew up right at me, bounced off of me twice, and landed again on the ground. It was only after a minute of shooting that I realized that it had caught the deer fly that had been buzzing my head only moments before, and was consuming it!

One day, Greg led everyone who wanted to on a canoe/kayak trip on Gilman Pond. Pam was tired, and sizing up the weather, I decided to pass on it, and spend some more time with the resident sapsuckers. I had found one pair visiting a nest cavity, and really was hoping for some nice light for photos and maybe a video or two. Well, the light never got much brighter, but I had the idea of setting up the camera on a tripod and tripping the shutter with the camera's infrared remote control. I was able to get a few nice photos and some video that I was quite happy with. Unfortunately, when I compiled them and uploaded to YouTube, there was quite a bit of degradation in the quality, but you get the idea...



Next post, birding in the Rangeley Lakes area

Wordless Wednesday 7/8/09

Great Spangled Fritillary

Get Wordless over at Wordless Wednesday

Summertime... and the blogging ain't easy

Oh, my poor neglected blog, I am sorry for being so remiss in providing you with much of substance lately.

Every now and again, I go through periods where I feel like I am just posting a photo here and there, and not doing any writing. (Which some might argue isn't a bad thing - I'm not sure how much people enjoy my writing, but this is a blog after all and I feel like I should be.) In June I challenged myself to post at least one photo each day in order to make sure that I kept it active, as I felt that the blog was starting to become stale. It's easy to fall into patterns, and I could see that I was only posting once or twice a week and that was primarily for the memes that I participate in. Now that June is gone, and summer is in full swing, I need to really put a stronger effort into keeping the blog fresh and interesting. It's certainly not as easy for me as it might sound, but thankfully I have a few events that I look forward to blogging about. As you might have picked up on by now, I just got back from a week in Maine and I hope to start blogging about that tomorrow. (Working two jobs today and then back to first job early tomorrow, so it just won't happen today) I took lots of photos and have a couple of neat videos that I took also, and am looking forward to sharing them with you.

Then, this coming Saturday, I be joining Dawn, Luke, and several others for the next outing of Birders who Blog, Tweet, and Chirp. You may remember that Dawn and I organized one in MA in June. Well, Dawn is up to it again, this time teaming up with Luke from the Under Clear Skies blog to have an outing in Connecticut. Details about it can be found here and here. Come on out if you are in the area. Last time was great, and I have every confidence that this one will be every bit as much so!
And speaking of those crazy birding, blogging, chirping folks; John from Birding in Maine, has created a web site for Birders who Blog, Tweet, and Chirp! Announcements were made about the unveiling of this site last week while I was away, and I've not had much of a chance to explore the site yet, but what little I've seen looks great. Many thanks to Dawn for starting this all, and to John for carrying the ball to the next step. Check it out and sign up - it's a great way to meet other birders & bloggers.

On Saturday the 18th, I'll also be joining the Brookline Bird Club on their next "extreme" pelagic trip. These trips usually run 3 times a year, and leave from Hyannis, MA and go out past the edge of the continental shelf to Veatch and Hydrographer Canyons in search of whatever pelagic birds can be found. (These trips typically last 17-18 hours!) While not as famous as some of the pelagics that go out south of New England, we've had some really nice sightings in the last few years, including the first NE (and third North American) record of Macaronesian (Little) Shearwater, Band-rumped Storm Petrel, Bridled Tern, both species of Skua, as well as the more expected Greater, Cory's Sooty, Manx, and Audubon's Shearwaters, Parasitic and Pomarine Jaegers, etc. Keeping my fingers crossed for good weather for that one!

Finally, I'll be taking my first stab at hosting an edition of I and the Bird on July 23.

So hopefully, there will be some fun and interesting reading to come this month here at PicusBlog. Stay tuned...

Bird Photography Weekly #45

Gray Jay (Perisoreus canadenis)

Just got in from vacation last night from a week-long trip to Maine, so I am playing catch-up here. I took quite a few photos, but really haven't had time to do much with them yet. I chose a few quick easy ones to post for this week's Bird Photography Weekly, as a follow-up to last week's. BUT, lo and behold, I just learned that several posts that I had scheduled before I went away never appeared (they just stayed scheduled) which is rather annoying.

Anyway, last week I had intended to post some older photos of Gray Jays that I had taken, and I thought I post a few more this week, since they were such a big hit with everybody else on the trip. (And really, they are such charismatic birds, why wouldn't they be popular?)

To see some great bird photos from around the world, check out:

Fragile Forktail for June Photo-a-Day

Fragile Forktail (Ischnura posita)

I was able to id this particular damselfly by the "exclamation point" stripe on the thorax.

So this will be my last post for a few days. As you are reading this, I am in Maine on vacation, hopefully seeing and photographing birds, dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, moose, and whatever else puts itself before my lens. (And hopefully it's not raining!)

Bird Photography Weekly #44

Gray Jay (Perisoreus canadenis)

To see some great bird photos from around the world, check out: