Semi-successful Birding

"Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul..."

-Emily Dickenson

Well, I had high hopes for my mini birding trip today, but alas, I was not as succhessful as I had anticipated. Nonetheless, I visited two parks and saw some cool birds -- only one year bird, but I'll get to that in a moment. Can you tell what is in these two pictures? The first thing you'll probably notice is the lovely (and of course totally natural) soda bottle floating serenely in the algae. But look closer.

This is actually a picture of baby Moorhens! There were 2 adults swimming around with all the garbage and four chicks swimming standing by their nest. It was really cool to watch. You could even hear the babies cheeping very faintly.

It was unfortunate how badly the park was polluted though. My mom and Brother and I picked up trash where we could, but the place was disgusting and most trash was far out of reach.

In this picture, you can see a Fish Crow on the left side of the tree and a Blue Jay on the right side. They seemed to be cawing irritably at each other, but neither was inclined to move away.

Afterwards, we headed off to another park out of the urban area and closer to home. This was a fantastic looking tree covered in Red Lichen! I've never seen one so red before.

Red-bellied Woodpecker. Hard to get a good shot of him.

And... last but not least, my year bird: A Northern Parula! I haven't seen one of these guys in almost a year. It took probably 20 minutes or so before I finally got a good long look at it.

Considering the circumstances, I guess I'm lucky to have seen one year bird today. :-)

Happy birding!