Monday, May 7, 2018

Varied Thrush and other interesting migrants

This is a beautiful bird.  Unfortunately I neither saw it nor took the photo, but because the bird was seen about ten feet from my house and the photo was taken with my camera I feel comfortable about posting the picture here.  I just can't add it to my life list.
It is, of course, a Varied Thrush.  A bird that according to our bird book isn't supposed to be any closer to Lucky Lake than the Rocky Mountains.

Birds I did see yesterday include a flock of Lapland Longspurs which are just passing through on their way to their nesting grounds in the Arctic.  Generally Longspurs crouch in the grass and practically disappear from view.  I noticed these because some of them chose to sit on a fence wire.
Others dropped to the ground close to the wire where the ground had been worked.  They were only twenty feet or so from my car so I was able to see them.  Further back they seemed to fade into the background.
The female hides even better with her muted colours.
While I watched, about thirty of the birds flew up into the air at the same time and landed again further away.

This one stayed though, along with a few others.
My other bird of the day were these two American Golden-Plovers.  Or that's what I'll call them till someone tells me differently.
The only thing making me uncertain is the white on the underside of the bird on the right. Here are a couple more photos showing different views of the same birds.


Click on photos to make them larger.

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