Passerines at Wellfleet Bay

While I was at Wellfleet Bay Audubon Sanctuary, I also spent time at the two feeders that are on either side of the path leading down into the main sanctuary.  I set up my tripod and camera on the side so I had a good view, and once the birds got used to me had no problems photographing them.  There were some difficulty, the first was when other visitors would walked down the path, the birds would scatter, but, they would return in a short period of time.  The other problem, was that the birds would fly in, grab some seeds and fly away to eat the seeds..  What I would love to have done, utilizing the techniques that Alan Murphy describes in his e-books, is set up perches, so the bird with land on it before going down and grabbing the seeds.  However, I made do with what was available.  At least some of the birds with land on branches and stay there long enough so I could obtain photographs.

American Goldfinch in winter plumage

Black-capped Chickadee

Blue Jay

Downy Woodpecker

House Sparrow

Northern Cardinal

Pine Siskin

Pine Siskin

Belted Kingfisher, Again

This past weekend I travel to Cape Cod to join a group of photographers photographing the beautiful landscapes of the Cape.  Because, I did not have to meet my group until mid-afternoon, I left the house early and traveled to Wellfleet Bay, Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary located in Wellfleet, Massachusetts to see what I could photograph.  I spent most of the morning in the bird blind located on the left side Of Goose Pond, looking for subjects to photograph.  All I had was A Greater Yellowlegs, feeding in the pond and a Male Belted Kingfisher, that landed on a stump in the pond from where it flew to catch fish.

The Kingfisher stayed for about a half-hour, then left for almost over an hour and I came back again for another half hour.  It was worth waiting for.  I did obtain some excellent photographs.  As I had written in my blog about the belted Kingfisher in January of this year, it was a pleasure just to watch the Kingfisher's antics as it looked around for prey.  I was able to get pictures of the bird leaving the perch and returning to the perch.  Returning to the perch, the Kingfisher had a fish in its mouth.



As I had previously stated in an earlier Blog http://photobee1.blogspot.com/2012/01/belted-kingfisher.html, kingfishers of fun to observe and I always feel lucky when I obtained decent photographs of them.

Garden Snails

Brown-lipped Garden Snail

As I have been looking around the butterfly garden at Allens Pond Sanctuary, on a number of the plants that have been snails.  Researching what species are the snails, I come to find out that two varieties of the garden snails are an invasive species in the United States, actually have come from Europe and they have established themselves.  One of the snails is the Grove Snail or Brown Lipped Snail (Cepaea nemoralis) and the other variety is the White Lipped Snail (Cepaea hortensis).  Both snails a very similar in appearance, except for the band at the lip of the shell, which gives them their name.
The snails are air- breathing, terrestrial gastropod mollusk.  It is a hermaphrodite and does have to mate in order to produce fertile eggs.  The diet consists of grass and a low low-lying plans, including nettles.
The white-lipped snails are slightly smaller than the brown-lipped snails.  Both of them have considerable variability in shell color and banding.  The most distinguishing feature between the two types of snails is the color of the lip at the aperture of the show in the adults.  Except for rare instances, the white- lipped snail band is white and the brown-lipped snails band is brown.

White-lipped Garden Snail

White-lipped Garden Snail - back side view

White-lipped Garden Snail

.

A Mornings Birding at Wellfleet Bay Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary

Today is Thursday and if you have been following my blogs.  Usually, you know that on Thursday's I go birding with my good friend Doug.  Today was no exception, we met at my house at 615 with Doug bringing delicious Starbucks coffee and we set out to bird on Cape Cod.  On the way.  We decided we would bird first at Wellfleet Bay, Massachusetts Audubon Sanctuary.  We arrived before the visitor center open, however, the trails are open beginning it sunrise.  Before we left the garden and the feeders.  We had seen 17 different species.  Perhaps the most interesting was a juvenile vesper sparrow, Juvenile Eastern Towhee who was perched on the sanctuaries solar panels. The hardest part of the day was trying to identify some of the sightings due to, the large number of juveniles.  We slowly made our way down toward the beach.  Prior to reach in the beach, the number of birds that we saw were low.  On reaching the beach area, there was a number of different shorebirds there, including Eastern and Western Willet's, Whimbrils, Greater Yellowlegs, plus a large number of different species out on the flats as the tide receded.  A saltmarsh sparrow gave us a great view of itself by perching on the marsh grass for a couple minutes, and allowing the to take its picture.







Near the shore was " a murder of crows".  Murder is the name given to a flock of crows.

Monarch was feading on flowers and there was extremely large number of Atlantic Marsh Fiddler Crabs, I observed a pair of male fiddler crabs fighting over a hole.

On the way walking back to the visitors center, at the pond, there was a beautiful green heron present, which was searching for food.

When we finally finished birding Wellfleet, we wanted to go further up on the Cape toward Provincetown, however, traffic was so backed up, so we decided to head off the Cape, but also decided to stop first and have some lunch.  We stopped at the Lobster Shanty on route 6, which is across the road from where the Cape Cod National Seashore Visitors Center Is located.  We had lobster salad, which was so large, and furnish me not only with lunch, but also with supper.

Red-winged Blackbird

Least Sandpiper

Greater Yellowlegs

Semipalmated Plover

Song Sparrow

"Tip-toeing Through the Sand" Western Willet

Western Willet and Short-billed Dowitcher

Western Willet and Short-billed Dowitcher

Whimbrel

Willet - Eastern

More Birds at Daniel Webster

Purple Martin - male 

Purple Martin - Female

During my visits to Daniel Webster Sanctuary, besides the cattle egret and the Canada geese mating, I did encounter a number of  interesting  and also common birds.

Purple Martin in Nesting Gourd

Eastern Phoebe with nesting material

Eastern Phoebe

Glossy Ibis

Glossy Ibis

Glossy Ibis eating a frog

Red-winged Blackbird - female

Red-winged Blackbird - female

Swanp Sparrow

House Sparrow

Wood Duck - Male

Wood Duck - Female

Tree Swallow with nesting material

Tree Swallow

Greater Yellowlegs



Wild Turkey



Belted Kingfisher

Wilson's Snipe