Pilot Mountain Birds of the Day

Princess Gail and I spent a beautiful fall morning at Pilot Mountain State Park. We spotted 15 bird species, including the ever present Pine Warbler, and lots of Blue Jays (a group of 4 and then a group of 10.) Here are the birds of the day:

A Scarlet Tanager (probably female vs winter male)…

a Red-breasted Nuthatch

and a Broad-winged Hawk.

It was a fun time! Wish you could have joined us! 🙂

Birding at Reynolda

We had a very good day birding at the beautiful Reynolda Gardens today. It is part of the Wake Forest University grounds, all of which was donated by the JR Reynolds (tobacco) family. We saw 34 species but I only managed a few half-way decent shots.

The first one was easy, because the bird box doesn’t fly away the moment I compose the picture and try to focus.

This next one was easy, too, because the subject is so just damn photogenic! 😉

Our looks on most of the birds were brief in this dense foliage, and some of the birds were just too small and far away for good pics. But this Scarlett Tanager is okay.

This Yellow-crowned Night-Heron was the most cooperative, peacefully fishing along a little stream.

Taking pictures of good looking birds can be difficult, unless they pose nicely for me like this:

That was the bird of the day! 😀