Back In Town

Beautiful Wood Ducks are back for the spring in Erie County, PA. Good, easily-accessible places to see Wood Ducks at Presque Isle State Park: Leo’s Landing, Long Pond, & Thompson Circle swamp/pond. These shots at Leo’s Landing.

Bonus MIF (Mallard in flight) at South Pier:

Morning @ East Ave

Variable spring weather continues in Erie County, PA: Sunny on Friday, overcast on Saturday, foggy on Sunday, eventually Sunny on Monday, rainy today. Plenty of bird content on tap; here’s a brief photo essay of morning at East Ave boat launch, on a sunny day last week:

North Pier Light & floating gull
Mallard @ sunrise (m: left; f: right)
Song Sparrow on boat launch riprap
Sunny Mallard (m)
Distant Red-breasted Merganser @ takeoff
More Song Sparrow
Sunny Mallard II (f)
Common Loon
Horned Grebe I
“Cormorant Rock”
Probably first winter Great Black-backed Gull
Horned Grebe II
Gull Point observation platforms
Song Sparrow III
Blue Jay

Purple Preen

100% guaranteed not an April Fool’s joke. From this past (holiday) Friday at Presque Isle State Park, an amazing sighting of five Purple Sandpiper on the beach adjacent outer Thompson Bay, along the Gull Point Trail. (This is the beach access by where the main/official trail turns at ‘big bend.’) Pictures of the larger group forthcoming; in the meantime: one individual, mostly preening behavior:

[Photo Editor’s note: tough shooting against the sun = difficult lighting conditions + slightly funky exposure even w/ adjustments. Overly blue water color on some of these shots = artifact from Adobe Lightroom auto-adjustment.]

Spotlight/E. Phoebe

Early spring spotlight on Eastern Phoebe. Regularly seeing this lovely bird at multiple locations in Erie County, PA, e.g., East Ave boat launch, Gull Point Trail, Shades Beach Park, etc.

Eastern Phoebe @ Shades Beach Park

Characteristic dark head; can appear very dark from a distance:

@ Thompson Circle swamp/pond

Smudgy gray on sides of breast, lightly yellow underbelly, & weak wing bars :

Static pictures don’t help, but characteristically wags tail up and down.

At Thompson Circle, this individual was ‘pond dipping:’ perched above pond, then dropping down to the water surface for hunting insects, etc.:

After successfully catching a water insect, flew off to the nearby shrubbery and out of sight:

Eastern Phoebe w/ snack
Another view of Phoebe at Shades Beach

Gulls @ Sunset

Beautiful day Friday (after noon-ish) in Erie County, PA, then hazy Saturday morning turning to rain this afternoon. (Generally chilly both days.) Lots of great bird sightings to report, but while waiting on photo editing, here’s Ring-billed Gulls at the Liberty Park marina area (Erie, PA), just before sunset the other evening:

Re-purposed some ‘subject out of frame‘ shots for artistic/abstract effect:

1/Blackbird

Some nice shots of a lovely Red-winged Blackbird (male) exhibiting preening behavior + lots of shaking/flapping. Presque Isle State Park, Erie, PA.

[Photo Editor’s note: tough to capture both black feather detail + ‘stop motion.’ These shots mostly @ 1/2500 sec in spot metering mode + exposure compensation +0.3-+0.7, + auto adjustment in Adobe Lightroom then manual contrast adjustment.]