A new month, a new location

I was up in the DC-Baltimore area last week and was frustrated by a feeder bird with a super-stout beak, finch-like; I went for a female indigo bunting, since its head was orangey, fading down its shoulders, but then the mate showed up with less color, mostly brown with a faint single wing bar (white) and a mildly dark eye strip with light eyebrow stripe. I ended up with a purple finch, but have never seen such a strong beak on the ones around here, nor the orange head.

Oh well!

At the upper end of the Skyline Drive in Virginia, a ruffed grouse with chick, who spread its tail to show the banding.

Indigo buntings were all along the grassed areas, singing from high branches, very blue indeed.

Goldfinches were all around.

Vireos sang endlessly, sounded like red-eyed ones "look-up over-here see-me..."

Also red-winged blackbirds and grackles at a lake, and lots of barn swallows everywhere.

Weekend in the Ga "mountains"

What a surprise - down in the creek valley red-eyed vireos sang all day long, invisibly, while a pair of black-throated green warblers browsed through the cypresses; belted kingfishers swept up and down the streambed, crows and pileated woodpeckers filled in the silence while chickadees, titmice and eastern phoebes worked lazily in the heat. Summer is rarely so busy here, near Rich Mountain Wilderness area.