Saturday, October 3, 2009

Parker River with Mom

Whoops! Looks like I let a whole month pass by without a single posting. What can I say? I've been busy, busy, busy. I've been meaning to post for a couple of weeks now, and since the cold-to-end-all-colds has me sitting at home on a Saturday night, I suppose there's no time like the present to catch up. Plenty of birds, not a whole lot of going out to bird watch. But, I should start from where I left off.

I took Mom bird watching at Parker River on August 26th. We didn't make it out for dawn, but we were there by 9 am. I got some nice shots of the swallow migration, and was giddy watching them all. Mom was a bit nervous about them, said she kept thinking of Hitchcock's The Birds, but she wasn't so anxious that she didn't appreciate the spectacle.
a harrier joins the frenzy


I brought Mom to North Pool Overlook and Hellcat, and we did the Marsh Loop and the Dunes Trail. Mom spotted a vireo that was right above our heads as we were on our way back on the Dunes Trail, about to cross the road. Unfortunately, the bird was too close for my camera to focus on it while the big ole lens was on, so I didn't get a shot.

Regrettably, by the time we made it down to Sandy Point there was no more parking. But, we were both starting to get hungry, so we made our way out of the refuge and grabbed lunch at Bob Lobster. After lunch we went for a little shopping in downtown Newburyport. I made sure to tell Mom that "bird watching isn't usually like this." :-P

Alright, that'll have to do for now, time for bed. Hopefully soon I'll get caught up with my blog, and then begins the daunting task of trying to catch up with everyone else's! (Hope everyone is well!)

Take nothing but pictures (and maybe the trash of jerks who came before you), leave nothing but footprints.

3 comments:

  1. very interesting about the numbers of swallows. I usually think of August as their time at Parker River. I haven't been following the reports, because I am too busy to do anything about them, but you've piqued me now.

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  2. So nice to see you bloggin again.

    Funny that your mom was scared by the swallows...looks like there were tons of them.

    I like the shot with the harrier in the center..very cool.
    catcha later!

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  3. Wow, I am seriously impressed by that mass of swallows and the harrier shot really is nice.

    This post reminds me of the day I took my non-birding wife to Point Pelee in May. We had an early morning start and she really enjoyed all the colourful warblers but around noon she said she's had so much nature now that she needed a "cleansing shopping", so we went to Leamington and she got herself a pair of shoes. Aaah, the cliche! Furthermore, I noticed that she must have been really desperate or else Leamington (of all the places) would certainly not have satisfied!

    Nice to see you back on your blog, hope to read more from you soon.
    Cheers!

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