View allAll Photos Tagged fallmigration
Kennesaw MTN GA. 10/11/2017.
This is a fall male as fall females wouldn't have the black eye-line topping off the auricular, nor the black above the bold wing bars. First fall males are generally more yellow than orange, and probably wouldn't have such bold wing bars, but this bird looks a little too dull to clearly call it a fall adult male. Therefore I am calling this simply a fall male age undetermined.
Our backyard was very busy with fall migration in full swing. The thrush has been in the backyard for a couple of days now and even posed for several shots.
Photographed 24 September 2022, Morning Flight, Gooseberry Neck, Westport, Bristol County, Massachusetts
I was pretty jazzed to capture a little Halloween color yesterday at Quintana Neotropical Bird Sanctuary with this little American Redstart that was flitting around the trees near the front water feature. They sure don’t sit still for long!
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Setophaga ruticilla
The expression ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ saw more evidence of its general truth this late summer/early fall during the southbound migration. Despite a weak spring migration during which even Palm Warblers were treated like pop stars, the abundance of fall Cape Mays led to people making dismissive ‘it’s only another Cape May’ comments on a regular basis. I had never seen a fall Cape May, and I have a small number of images I really like that I hope to get around to posting, all of them in different versions of immature/female/male non-breeding plumage, and a couple of spring-worthy males to boot.
Photographed 04 October 2020, Westborough Wildlife Management Area, Westborough, Worcester County, Massachusetts
Body: Nikon D750 DSLR
Lens: Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports
Thanks in advance for your views, favorites, and supportive comments.
What a surprise to have two of these beautiful birds visit our backyard on their migration route. The elderberries were a big hit with them.
A juvenile, another one of the small sandpipers known peeps. A cool fact from Cornell "The migration of the Baird's Sandpiper takes it from the arctic to the tip of South America—and the birds do it in record time. Most individuals leave migration staging grounds and travel some 3,700 miles or more directly to northern South America (and some continue as far as Tierra del Fuego). They can complete the entire 9,300 mile journey in as little as 5 weeks."
Hidden Pond Trail. Carter's Lake.
This dull plumage is first fall female. There is just a vague hint of yellow on the face in this plumage. The rump is more olive than yellow. We see this species here in GA more often in spring than fall migration.
The dark eye line, the fine streaking beneath, and the slightly decurved bill are the more obvious findings of similarity to the much brighter adult male plumage.
My first birding stop this morning was the Quintana jetty and there were lots of the usual suspects messing around on the rocks (Sanderlings, Ruddy Turnstones, Least Sandpipers) and I thought I was only going to get a nice walk out of my visit when I spotted this Nelson’s Sparrow working its way back toward the shore. A nice but unexpected surprise.
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Ammodramus nelson
Semipalmated Sandpiper (Calidris pusilla) searching for food
Tri-state region, East Coast, USA
www.greggard.com/blog/2021/8/semipalmated-sandpiper-walki...
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Striking in breeding plumage during the spring migration and totally different in the fall migration but as striking.
Cochran Shoals. Atlanta area. 9/20/2017.
This is a rare find thru here in either season but seem easier to come upon in the fall. They breed far north of here.
They are much more common in the Western US.
This is a first fall male. The multi-colored breast bands indicate this is a male, and they are veiled in yellow feathers as they are in all fall birds of this species. The abundance of olive wash on the head, and back, along with the olive edged flight feathers indicate this is a first fall male. A fall adult male would have less olive on the head, and be more contrasty above, and would have blue edged flight feathers.
This species is fun to target in the fall as age, and sex produce varied pastel colored plumages.
Cochran Shoals. Atlanta area. 9/13/2017.
One recent afternoon, some friends and I were delighted to spend 15 minutes watching a mixed group of warblers drop in to a garden stream for bathing and drinking. This Backburnian Warbler was one of them.
Although this creature is frequently found on trails, flying ahead at the last minute to avoid human contact but landing again on the trail, it also ends up in long grasses and, in this case, in shrubs. I think of myself as being aware of these creatures at all times, mostly down low. But this specimen posed at eye level in a shrub right beside my head when I was tracking a fall migrant Blackpoll Warbler. I liked seeing it elevated, and it seemed unaffected by my presence, so I tried to secure an image. I was pretty happy with this one.
This creature can be a nuisance, as the name Locust suggests. Even though it may be the least destructive of the locusts, the species can damage crops. It feeds on what we call weeds, wild grasses of little economic importance, but if an area supports significant reproduction, they can relocate to damage commercial crops. In Ontario they have damaged tobacco and alfalfa crops, though not in a systematic or sustained way.
When I was a kid we called them road-dusters. And birds love to eat them.