The Wandering Naturalist: Sax-Zim Bog trip Pt 2: Hoary Redpoll

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Sax-Zim Bog trip Pt 2: Hoary Redpoll

Almost forgot to add this. :D

We were at Morse's feeders on Blue Spruce Rd on Sun morning watching the feeders.

All of a sudden, I noticed a much lighter bird among the large flock of Common Redpolls. Libby noticed it at the same time and said "Check out that one Redpoll, it's lighter than the others."

I said "I know, I was just looking at that."

A closer inspection proved that the bird sported a small, conical bill, very light flank streaking, a rosy wash over the chest and a perfect, white rump.

It took only a few minutes to prove that my suspicions were correct.

"That's a Hoary Redpoll!!!" I yelled to the others. They quickly got on it and agreed. We quickly snapped a few photos and then took time to observe the bird closely and make sure every field mark was correct.

Note the white rump

very little streaking

HOARY REDPOLL!!

It was a lifer for all of us and one we had really wanted on this trip.

It was one awesome weekend!

Happy Birding!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: Congrats on the life bird!

Very nice photos!; March 6, 2009 at 1:47 PM

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Bird quotes.

"The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living things breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before such a one can be again."

(From William Beebe's "The Bird: Its Form and Function," 1906)

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' (I found it) but 'That's funny...'"
--Isaac Asimov

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
-- Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad

"I once had a sparrow alight on my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn." --Henry David Thoreau

"God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages." --Jacques Deval

"Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them?" --Rose Kennedy

"No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings" --William Blake

"A wise old owl sat on an oak; The more he saw, the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren't we like that wise old bird?" --E.H. Richards

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song" --Maya Angelou

"When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head!" --William Blake

"He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ringed with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls."

--A.L. Tennyson, "The Eagle"

"This monument, perched like a duckhawk on this cliff, will scan this wide valley, watching through the days and years. For many a March, it will watch the geese go by. For many an April, it will see the redbuds come and go, and for many a May the flush of Oak-blooms on a thousand hills. Questing wood Ducks will search these basswoods for hollow limbs; golden Prothonotaries will shake golden pollen from river willows. Egrets will pose on these sloughs in August; Plovers will whistle from september skies. Hickory nuts will plop into October leaves and hail will rattle November woods. But no pigeons will pass for there are no pigeons, save only this flightless one graven in bronze on this rock.
Tourists will read this inscription but their thoughts will not take wing."
--Aldo Leopold ("on the monument to the pigeon". A Sand county almanac)