The day started at 8 am with a trip out to the Norman Bird Sanctuary for their every-other-Sunday bird walk. It was a long walk today, out the entrance and down Third Beach Rd. to the salt marsh behind Third Beach, and coming back by way of some trails through meadows that belong to the Sanctuary. We certainly saw lots of birds! The object of today's quest was the Marbled Godwit who has been hanging out in the salt marsh behind the parking lot at Third Beach for about three weeks now. We saw it, but I didn't get a usable photo because it was way too backlit on a very bright day. There were also lots of Tree Swallows around; they're staging for the migration south. And Goldfinches, Mockingbirds, Catbirds, etc. along the road on the way down and in the fields on the way back, as well as immature Little Blue Herons, immature and adult Snowy Egrets, Great Egrets, Killdeer, and a Lesser Yellowlegs (Sandpiper family) hanging out with the Godwit, all down in the salt marsh. But no pictures; they were all either out of camera range or the lighting was bad.
There were also deer. I really wanted to get a shot of a handsome young 2-point buck hanging out on the hillside across the pool in the salt marsh, but he got into the reeds and I never saw him again. But we saw a Mama and two fawns in the front yard of the house next to Sanctuary headquarters, and I managed to get a decent shot of the fawns.
We got back to Newport around 11 am and I made a beeline for Ballard Park and Gooseneck Cove. No critter shots, but I'm really pleased with these two shots of Gooseneck Cove and its salt marsh.
And that was my Sunday!
© 2009 by A. Roy Hilbinger
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Comments: 10
I SO need a new camera; mine sucks :( The heron was in the reeds at the edge of our waterfront today .... I didn't even bother trying because I knew by the time I got the camera set up on the tripod the batteries would drain.