New York Vacation - Day 5/6

Hi everyone. I'm so slow at catching up these days. Life is keeping me busy.  I hope you all are doing well and enjoying some nice fall weather.

Moving on with the vacation series: The next couple of days were "lite" days. We would head off to see what we might discover, take in the scenery, look for birds, and then simply relax. Of course, before heading back to the hotel, we stopped at a winery. Lee bought some wine and fudge. I don't enjoy drinking, so I just got the fudge (which was delicious!)

This field of flowers was so beautiful. Everyday we passed by it and birds were often perched on the stalks. 

Not much was there on this day, so we headed over to the Northern Montezuma Wildlife Management Area. 

We were immediately greeted by this beautiful immature Peregine Falcon. I wondered what he was looking at. Was that a sidelong glance at me?  😏

The pond was covered with green and this duck was standing on someone's now empty nest.

A Red-Winged Blackbird was gathering fluff from Cattails.

Do you see them all? Great Blue Herons standing on these nests! I didn't know that they sometimes nest like this. There were mounds as far as the eye could see.  I guess if there are no trees around, perhaps this is what they do (?) I talked with someone who lives there and he confirmed that they nested there every year. 

This bird flashed me! Tsk!  😏

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Day 6

We weren't seeing a lot of birds on these two days, so we kept the days short and relaxed. We spotted this Belted Kingfisher at the Howland Island Wildlife Management Area. If I'm remembering correctly, I believe we saw three of them there, flitting about, moving up and down the river - this one perched in the tree for awhile. 

We spotted this beautiful Osprey with a fish

Toward the end of the day, this Cormorant stood with outstretched wings. 

Only one more day left in New York and then we would be heading home.

See you next time! 

New York Vacation - Day 4

For a week that was supposed to bring rain everyday, we certainly had some good weather. We experienced a few sprinkles here and there, but overall, it was fine. Maybe not the bluest of skies, but we were happy just to be there breathing in the fresh air and enjoying the countryside. 

This heron stood quietly by the creek, unbothered that we were there. Is "unbothered" a word? Spellcheck doesn't think so, but spellcheck doesn't think spellcheck is word either.  Oh, I don't care. He was unbothered and spellcheck is dumb anyway. :)  (I just checked... Merriam Webster lists both, so that's that.)

There was a good-sized population of Moorhens in the canal. 

Here is one that seemed to be sunning itself on the bank of the canal.

The ever-present Rose Mallow. I couldn't resist taking pictures of them because of the way they turned their heads to face the sun throughout the day.

Suddenly, we hit a roadblock!  So much traffic! 

Crouched in the weeds, as if to hide from me. I didn't see you, dear egret. Promise.

There were two lovely giants there. These Trumpeter Swans are huge compared to the Mute Swans we see here in Connecticut.

I would love to know what kind of bird this is. I couldn't find anything that looked like it in my bird ID field guides. 

Yellowlegs danced in the shallow ponds

This Double-Crested Cormorant stood perched on a stump 

Another egret was fishing.

It was a short day for us. We were both tired of being the car, so we headed back to the hotel, offloaded our photos, and watched a little TV.  That ended our fourth day.

Until next time. See you soon. 

(Scheduled Post)