White-crowned Sparrows and More Birds at the Shore

Today felt like a beach day, so I paid a visit this morning to Silver Sands State Park. I hardly spent any time on the actual beach, however, because there was so much going on in the other parts of the park!

The field-like area next to the marshes was positively bursting with small birds -- mostly sparrows -- flying from tree to ground to dried goldenrod stem and just all over the place. There were dozens of these little brown birds, presumably in the midst of their south-bound migration. As far as I could tell, most of the birds were Song Sparrows and Savannah Sparrows -- I'm still not 100% confident in my sparrow identification skills, so there was a lot of pointing-and-shooting with my camera so I could check the IDs later at home. This actually turned out to be a useful lesson in how much variety there can be from individual to individual within a single species. I'm fairly certain, for example, that the bird in this picture is a Savannah Sparrow, even though it doesn't have much yellow above its eye at all, and that's the feature I usually use to identify these birds. (Perhaps this is the pale "Ipswich" subspecies that my field guide shows.)
 

So yeah, sparrows are tricky. I did see one species of sparrow this morning, though, that stood easily out from the rest.... With that weird helmeted head, it's tough to mistake a White-crowned Sparrow for anything else!
 

This is the first time I've seen White-crowned Sparrows in Connecticut, although they do apparently show up here in small numbers in the fall and winter. There were several of these birds hanging out this morning -- I saw just the one adult with its stark black and white markings, and the rest of the birds were juveniles, sporting more subdued colors:
 

This particular young White-crowned Sparrow was nice enough to hop around in a puddle while I stood right there -- I guess the puddle was more enticing than I was scary! So I took this unusual opportunity to go a little picture-crazy with this cool little fellow:
 

Mmm, plants!
 

I love the patterns of this young bird's feathers, and the puddle does look like a nice place to hang out:
 

And I can't help sharing this accidental picture -- look, a bouncing sparrow! :P
 

There were more little birds besides sparrows flitting around, too. A bunch of American Goldfinches were hanging out, looking a little less than pristine after molting out of their summer colors:
 

And a few warblers showed up, including this completely adorable Yellow-rumped Warbler -- I just love these birds:
 

I watched a Belted Kingfisher as it flew noisy circles over a nearby pond:
 

And an American Kestrel hovered over the field, fanning its tail and flapping its wings to stay in precisely one place for several seconds at a time:
 

Maybe the kestrel had its eye on one of our little sparrow friends?

When I finally did make it down to the beach, I found much less activity there. Aside from a few gulls and cormorants, in fact, the only movement came from a dead, globe-shaped bush, tumbling along across the sand:
 

What a surprising day!

Blackpoll Warbler

The traveling birds just keep coming through the yard, and our Red Cedar tree provides the perfect place for the birds to hunt for food while I creepily watch them. Today's fancy visitor was a Blackpoll Warbler:
 

Like so many other warblers, Blackpoll Warblers look much fancier in the spring, with the males sporting black caps and mustaches. I think this more subdued fall costume is still quite nice, though. And I'm not 100% sure, but I have a suspicion that our visitor may have been a male -- that looks like the remains of a mustache to me:

And are those a few scattered black feathers on the top of your head, too, bird?

I love it when warblers come to hang out here -- they all seem to have such a good time fluttering around and snatching bugs from the branches. What would it be like to live in an environment where there's food literally all around?

Thanks for stopping by, Mr. Blackpoll, and best of luck on your trip south!
 

Soggy Fall Woods

When I went for a walk in Naugatuck State Forest yesterday morning, we'd just had a couple days of rain, and even though the sun was coming out, everything was still soaked through. I happen to love the way the woods looks after rain, with the trees deep and dark and leaves glowing:

And now that fall is really setting in and the leaves are changing, the woods were looking especially showy. I just could not get over the colors on this (I believe) Sassafras tree, especially against the dark mostly-pine woods!

On soggy days, I tend to keep an eye out for amphibians, and I definitely wasn't disappointed during yesterday's walk. I always love getting to hang out with Red Efts (juvenile Red-spotted Newts), and a few of these brilliant little creatures were taking walks along the same paths as me. I hope they didn't mind my camera in their faces!

Efts are just too wonderful. I wonder why some are more shockingly orange than others:

Under a flat log, I found a little Red-backed Salamander, whose adorableness certainly rivals the efts' (although I don't think I could choose between the two):

And on the underside of the salamander's log was this group of European Sowbugs (Oniscus asellus) -- I'm sure I've encountered these creatures before (in the garden, most likely), but I never really stopped before to notice how crazily prehistoric they look:

Speaking of weird things on logs, I also found these pink bubbly growths, which turned out to be a slime mold (!) called Wolf's Milk (Lycogala epidendrum) -- I identified them thanks to a recent post on Saratoga Woods and Waterways:

(Looking at this picture now, I just realized that there are lots of smaller, brown spheres on the lowers parts of this log.... I wonder what's going on there.)

There were tons of birds flying around, but not many wanted to come in range of my camera. A Brown Creeper did come close enough, however, for me to notice how ridiculously large those feet and claws look -- all the better for creeping up tree trunks, I guess!

For whatever reason, I also saw quite a few Woolly Bear caterpillars crawling around on one section of the path. One was munching away at a big leaf on a Mullein plant, and it had already made a very respectable hole -- how appropriate, a woolly caterpillar and a woolly leaf:

Hooray for soggy days in the woods!

Cedar Waxwings Galore

The Red Cedar tree in our yard is now officially open for business, so say the Cedar Waxwings who were busy feasting on its berry-like cones all day today:
 

A waxwing in a sea of food.

I counted about 20 or so Cedar Waxwings in this flock, but there could've easily been more -- they were moving around so much, it was hard to get an idea of how many were actually out there. Most of the birds were juveniles, with streaky breasts and a generally scruffy appearance:
 

Hello scruffy bird, see anything you like?
 

In fact, I only saw one individual with the sleeker feathers and those funky red waxy deposits on its wing tips that mark older birds:
 

So this may not have been the fanciest group of waxwings ever, but these birds were a ton of fun to watch as they scarfed down as many cones as they could, as quickly as possible. And yeah, the juveniles could actually be pretty sleek, too:
 

Look, a waxwing tongue!
 

Speaking of tongues, there were a few other birds sampling Red Cedar cones today as well, including, to my surprise, a Northern Flicker -- I didn't think these birds ate fruit, but I guess they do! A few cones down, and then it licked its lips....
 

Now that's a tongue!!

I'll keep an eye on this tree to see what other creatures stop by for a snack. Hopefully there will be enough food to go around for a while yet!

Invading Red-breasted Nuthatches, and More Birds Passing Through

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Connecticut (and the rest of the United States, actually) is current experiencing an irruption of Red-breasted Nuthatches. This means there are now way more of these little birds scampering around than usual, and so I've been thinking that it should be only a matter of time before a Red-breasted Nuthatch shows up in our yard. I was quite happy this morning, then, when the Red Cedar outside our apartment's windows played host to one of these unusual visitors!

You are so cute, little bird, and so good at being upside-down. I love those fluffy, rusty feathers under your belly!

I was struck, actually, by how similar this bird's costume looked to those of the Black-capped Chickadees who were also flitting through the trees. Shift around the black and white on your face, little nuthatch, stop climbing along the undersides of branches, and you're practically a chickadee. (Well, almost.) The chickadees were making the comparison even easier this morning by carrying around big black sunflower seeds, so their beaks looked almost nuthatch-length (although way too bulky):
 

Chickadee... Red-breasted Nuthatch... It's like they were shopping in the same clothing store:

OK, one last chickadee picture, because these guys were being especially photogenic this morning, and I couldn't help myself:

So the Red-breasted Nuthatch was exciting. Around the same time, a tiny Ruby-crowned Kinglet passed through these trees as well -- this is another very cool bird who only rarely stops by, and usually only in the spring and fall:
 

As you may have noticed in some of these pictures, the Red Cedar's fleshy cones -- which are like dark blue berries -- are now ripe and ready for birds to scarf them down. Over the past couple of days, a small flock of Cedar Waxwings has been visiting our tree, but so far these birds have been plucking berries from the far side of its branches, and (mostly) hiding from my camera:

Hey birds, there are tons of good berries on this side of the tree, too! The buffet's open, so come on over!