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Massachusetts yard stuff.

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Most of my time back east was spent at my parents' house on Cape Cod where the yard birds are pretty damn good on there own.  Here's a brief rundown to tide you over until I get to the fun non-yard birds from the Cape.

Baby robins fledged the day before I arrived

Their cozy below-the-deck nest

 The grackle king

 Eastern Kingbird = cool

 Eastern Kingbird on a nest = even cooler

 Very well concealed

 Red-bellied Woodpecker

 Chippy stuffing its cheeks

 Baltimore Oriole

 My parents attract tons of orioles, both Baltimore and Orchard, with their jelly feeders.  One evening I saw a feather hanging out of the jelly and thought it was an oriole feather, but when I gave it a tug a whole dead baby bird came with it.  :(


Not sure how this scene came about. 


That's it from the yard, the rest of Cape Cod to come soon!  Good times and many thanks to my parents for always keeping their feeders stocked when I'm in town!!!


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Vermont!

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Last week while visiting my family in Massachusetts I had a bonus day trip up to Vermont with my brother.  He was doing the final walk through at a house in the woods his family was buying and I tagged along to see Vermont for the first time in 25+ years. 


The weather was familiar, if not ideal, and we spent most of the day getting soaked.  Our first stop was a spot my brother wanted to show me, Quechee Gorge, Vermont's deepest gorge, along the Ottauquechee River. 


We followed the wide trail down to the river and poked around for a bit.


Tadpoles for dayz

We walked back up the trail the other direction to the dam where snapping turtles and birds began to distract us.

Chestnut-sided Warbler!

Past the dam the trail turned grassy with Deweys Pond on one side and the dammed river on the other.  The birds loved this area. 

Northern Rough-winged Swallow


Warbling Vireo snacky

The highlight here was an empid that I was trying to track as it hopped around in dense leaves.  Finally it stopped and…
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Conboy Lake NWR / Steigerwald Lake NWR

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Last weekend Jacob and I went out to Conboy Lake NWR for the birds and wildflowers and lovely scenery.  Distractions are abundant out there.  We started off our walk on the Willard Springs trail with a lifer for Jacob, a feisty male Calliope Hummingbird.


The next million photos I took were all of wildflowers and plants even though the birds were nifty too.

Phantom orchid (Cephalanthera austinae)

Red columbine (Aquilegia formosa)

  Pinedrops (Pterospora andromedea)

Oh and this bird's nest was on the ground upside down, so I flipped it over for a photo.

Cozy!

At one point we started hearing some very loud woodpecker tapping and eventually found a pair of Black-backed Woodpeckers.  Very cool!


 We continued on towards the spring, stopping for more plants, and then made our way back on the parallel trail to make a loop. 

Spotted coral root (Corallorhiza maculata)

 Cascade mariposa lily (Calochortus subalpinus)

We reached an area where flycatchers were actually showing themselves, as opposed …
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