Still too hot to bird!

Tweet With temperatures ranging from 95 - 100° F, I haven't felt much like going out of the air conditioner. However, I was able to get out a few times early in the mornings before the heat of the day and swarms of people to see if anything was moving birdwise.

I checked the beach at East Fork SP, and was able to find a Least Sandpiper.

Least Sandpiper

While watching the Least, another peep flew in. Luckily, they were close enough that I didn't need my scope (the way I like it).

Since I have been feeling a little rusty on my birding skills as of late, I welcomed the chance to practice my peep ID.

The two peeps joined up, giving me the chance to compare them. I was quickly able to ID the one that joined the Least as a Semipalmated Sandpiper.

Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers

The size difference is only slight really. The Semi sand has black legs, while the Least has yellow legs. This is not always discernible though.

The Semipalmated appears longer legged to me. Here is a pic of it by itself.

Also, been seeing lots of deer on my morning walks. Here are a few pics of fawns from a few weeks ago (because I like baby pics).

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Too hot to bird!

Tweet Between working and the muggy, hot summer days, I haven't had much of a desire to go out birding recently.

Since birding is usually slow here in the summer, I often turn my attention to lepidoptera and odonata. Here are some of the butterflies that we found on the 1st annual East Fork Butterfly Count.

Least Skippers were everywhere...

Least Skipper on daisy

We also saw Hackberry Emperors, a butterfly that will often land on humans to get at the salts in your sweat.

Hackberry Emperor on hat

And we saw a few Peck's Skippers...

Peck's Skipper

And, since this is a bird blog, here are some pictures of some birds that I have ran across while out in the field recently.

This year seems like a good year for Indigo Buntings, as I have had up to four males in the yard this year.

Indigo Bunting male

And, I found these cute little baby Killdeer at Armledder Park. There were three of them.

Baby Killdeer

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