Running amok around Garden Key may or may not yield many birds...but there will always be Sandwich Terns. Well, in fall, at least.
I have crossed the Rubicon (or was it the Eel River?), and finally have returned to Humboldt County, where birds and birders and plentiful and everyone is high (especially the birders). I won't be here much longer, but its been good times. This place has been riddled with birders for years, and its been good to see a bunch of familiar faces again. My 2012 year list has grown to be even more corpulent in the last week, but with Bostick taking a trip to Hawaii, he is back in the lead again. Fuck. Maybe I will end up winning the year in the NIB category (that's Non-Introduced Birds, for you less nerdy people), but he may take the overall cake. Time will tell.
Here's some more scenes from the Dry Tortugas. Its easier to take pictures there than in Humboldt County.
Meet the first Swainson's Thrush to grace the pages of BB&B. This indelible Catharus of catharsis spent a day tamely hopping through our campsite, deftly avoiding the enormous hermit crabs that littered the ground.
Look at this White-eyed Vireo. It looks like it's teleporting into another dimension. That's where they really go in winter.
More teleporting. This one looks more like a Blue-eyed Vireo (***MEGA***).
The outer wall and moat at Fort Jefferson. Not a bad perch up there.
American Kestrels are another one of those birds that can be hard to talk about, because everyone knows what a kestrel is and how great they are. The roof of Fort Jefferson turned out to be a good place to get flight shots of them as they zoomed around having territorial battles.
Northern Parula sez: NOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM
NOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM
A barracuda making faces.
What a sweetheart.
This was the lone Northern Harrier that made it to Garden Key during my trip. I found her in a frigatebird flock.
Magnificent Frigatebird. The first one you see will trigger an agonizing reappraisal of all the birds you have previously seen that you hold so dear...they can really put the kibosh down on any motivation to watch non-charismatic avefauna.
