Dateline: 1 May 2022
In recent news, Red-headed Woodpecker and Baltimore Oriole spotted this past week in Millcreek Twp (“Gateway to Presque Isle”). Here’s some ‘bad bird audio’ of both:
Nice day Saturday at Presque Isle State Park – see https://birdingpi.com/just-another-day/. Sunday AM, moderately warm with overcast/dramatic clouds and localized thunderstorms. Break in the rain for a couple hours until 9:30AM or so, then heavy rain with intermittent thunderstorms the rest of the day. Enough of a dry window to dispatch the team out to the Ridge Trail/Sidewalk Trail and Budny Beach area.
First, in the ‘not something you see every day category’ [#nature], a racoon snoozing high up in a tree:
Lots of Yellow-rumped Warblers and Palm Warblers along the Ridge Trail – see https://birdingpi.com/more-warbler/. In the non-warbler category, here’s a Brown Thrasher:
Next, White-throated Sparrow with spring vegetation:
The first Gray Catbird of the season!
Lots more fuzzy goose babies along the Sidewalk Trail! Yay!
Could see a wall of dark sky moving in, and it started to rain steadily, but not heavily, by this point. Using shutter priority mode at 1/2000 sec with the auto ISO limited, the following three shots came out underexposed. Post-production, these have the brightness and exposure levels cranked way up = interesting effect:
Spotted Eastern Towhee in the last week along the Pine Tree Trail, but only glimpses in the underbrush. More out-and-active in the rain, this one was by the west Budny Beach parking area:
Besides a couple ok pictures, finally addressed the age-old question of whether bird photography is possible using an umbrella. The answer is, “Yes, but with difficulty, and not well.” There you have it! BirdingPI.com – going where others fear to tread!
[Editor’s note 1: “spotted Eastern Towhee” means an Eastern Towhee was seen, not to be confused with Spotted Towhee, which is a different species.]
[Editor’s note 2: to be clear, the umbrella is being used as a rain shield concurrently with also using a camera. The umbrella is not a camera-umbrella, although that’s not a bad idea.]
[Editor’s note 3: “fuzzy goose babies” again?]