I did not have the pleasure of joining Frank on one of these trips. I've been on other trips with Frank so I've some idea of how they would have been. And I doubt anyone could fully recreate the magic that was a Frank Windfelder field trip (should the opportunity arise then be sure to join him on one)!
But on a very nice October Saturday morning Tony and Steve did their best, leading a group of a dozen or so sparrow enthusiasts into the marsh.
It was a well prepared group, we all had our muck boots. So we trudged off in search of little brown birds.
So we looked.
And we looked.
And we looked some more.
The birds were not very obliging. "Over there!", "Over here!" "There it goes!" Birds popping up and going right back down again. Giving very brief looks.
Hiding in the grass.
(We can see you!)
This Saltmarsh Sparrow did give good looks.
As did this American Pipit.
Although it wouldn't sit still for photos!
We did see Savannah Sparrows and we may have spotted a Nelson's as well. But they were even worse subjects than the Pipit.
What we didn't see in birds we did see in butterflies. Monarch butterflies to be specific.
We didn't start counting until well into the trip. But we easily had thirty migrating through in the two plus hours we were there.
And unlike the birds, they had no problems posing.
And while it would have been nice to see more birds, all in all it was a pleasant way to spend a morning.
Unfortunately, some of the group left too soon. Marty & Brian happened upon the mother lode of marsh sparrows down the bay in tall grasses. When I finally got over there, at one point we had 12 sparrows all up at once (still hard to photograph what with the grasses obscuring the views and frustrating autofocus attempts). We tallied 1-2 subvirgatus Nelson's Sparrows, 2 nelsoni Nelson's Sparrows, and 11 Saltmarsh Sparrows. Those were all seen while standing in the same spot during less than a half hour's observation time. Obviously, that was the place to be, but it took a while to find it.
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