The Merlin bird sound identification is a great app that can identify birds by sound using your phone but like most good things it does have its downside. I now see birders walking around looking at their phone screen while birds are flying all around them! I've been guilty of it myself at times this year and have come to realize it's not a good good habit.  It also picks up bird that you may never see or hear yourself. That drives me crazy when it happens because you know you might be missing out on some great birds! It is fairly accurate but does misidentify some birds songs too. This ..read more

It's a crazy time of the year when all the spring migrants start pouring in. There was a little rain and clouds this morning but it didn't slow the birds down!  The top bird is an Orchard Oriole. There's not as many of these around as there are Baltimore Orioles in our area. A lot of people pass them off as being robins if they're not paying close attention. Orioles are in the same family as blackbirds where as American Robins are in the thrush family. This is a Yellow Warbler. They are one of the most abundant warblers in the summer. I like them because they stay closer to the ground t ..read more

It was still early in the spring migration when I got my big boots on and started mucking my way through the swampy zone where the Great Blue Herons gather on their grounds. As expected, there were plenty of Red-winged Blackbirds which are nice but that wasn't really what I was hoping to find. I wasn't looking for Song Sparrows either but if one is going to perform an avian opera in front of me I might as well listen for a few minutes.  There in the very top of a tall tree singing his heart out was what I was looking for. They sound a little like a robin singing but faster and more me ..read more

Who doesn't love owls? Now that I think about it, probably rodents and other small animals!  This is a male Great-horned Owl  probably doing security detail for a nearby nest.  I could imagine Clint Eastwood's voice coming out of his mouth-"Go ahead-make my day ..read more

How about "Belted Kingfisher landed on a branch?" Notice the female is the one with extra color in this species with a chestnut-colored belly band and flanks which he male does not have. It's usually the males that are more colorful when it comes to bird species.  "White-throated Sparrow visits Wadsworth Mansion grounds!" "Great Egret Arrives from migration trip and is caught standing in the rain!"  Oh well, sorry my headline didn't live up to expectations but Happy Easter to those who celebrated and since I'm actually posting this on the first of the month: Happy April 1st!   ..read more

Life is full off potential addictions. There are obvious ones like food, drugs, and alcohol but when you break one addiction another less obvious one can easily take its place  Birding seems like a healthy and wholesome activity. I think that in most ways it is, but birding can become an addiction too! Usually this applies to listing or having an appetite to constantly see new species. It's happened to me before but at I'm usually able to recognize it when it starts to creep back in. I spent the month of January and February anxious to see new species and adding numbers to my list. That ..read more

Sometimes, I can't get withing a 1000 feet of a bird but this turkey was right in the middle of the road! I know you might be thinking that the road is full of turkeys but I'm looking for the feathered kind that let's me take pictures. This tom was busy strutting his stuff for a couple of hens. I was just busy deleting pictures from my camera when this female Bufflehead popped up in front of me. Usually, they fly off or swim off by the time I raise my  camera. It's nice to get a better look at the more subtly marked female for a change as opposed to the male who are all white on the bac ..read more

Birders learn about birding at their own pace. Some learn quickly and are experts in no time. Others take years to graduate from identifying birds at the feeders to identifying a few warblers and never reach the level of expert. I fell somewhere in between. I learned a lot quickly but never ascended to that expert level. I still make mistakes and second-guess identifications. There are still certain categories of birds I have difficulty with.  The top photo is a female and male Gadwall. That was one of those duck species I wasn't confident with early on. The markings are subtle com ..read more

I took several trips down to the shore in January and not once did I see a Brant. Other people were reporting them and I even went to a location 10 minutes after they were reported there. No dice. Finally, I came across some in Clinton. There were about 3 dozen in total. I was relieved to put that behind me ..read more

One of the ways I've tried to make the winter pass by more quickly is by keeping track of how many bird species in can find in the month of January. There are more species in Connecticut during the winter than you might think. I've found 100 species in the Connecticut during the month of January and there are others who have found many more than that. Driving around Connecticut gets to be tiring so now I only pay attention to what I find in my own county. A lot less time consuming and a lot more fuel efficient.  It was 20 degrees and windy on the morning I saw this great Blue Heron. It w ..read more