last post

This is the last post I will be making to this blog. I've had great fun posting stories and photo to Its About the Journey, plus hearing from many of you. But life has taken a turn that just wasn't in the plans and I need time to work things out.

If anyone would like to talk birds, birding, photography or even go birding. I can be reached at MADDOG54L at tds dot net
Thanks to all of you for your kind and continued support of It's About the Journey over the last few months.
I'm sorry, very very sorry about all of this.
Pete

Silvery Blue Butterfly

The West Rutland Marsh Part 1

I found some interesting spring butterflies while birding the West Rutland Marsh yesterday.

Don't get my wrong the birding was great too. The marsh and surrounding area was alive with spring time activities, there were birds on territory, others singing while still others built nests. Bee's were busy gathering pollen from the flowering tree which filled the air with their sweet scent.

The Baltimore Orioles sang from high in the tree tops, the sound of woodpeckers marking of their nesting area filled the woods and yes, Spring was in evidence everywhere yesterday. A Red-eyed female Eastern Towhee had two males courting her in song, boy did I want to get a photo of them, their beautiful colors and that red eye was quite a site to see. But they stayed in the thickets and the only chance that I got was when the female landed on a fence post long enough to pick the camera up, look , focus pressed the trigger and the bird was gone. And all I had was a photo of a bunch of sticks, but I did get to see them. My honey always says, ”sometimes you’re the bug and sometimes you’re the windshield” I was the bug on more then one occasion yesterday which is way I was so excited to find the some spring butterflies. They were not any better at sitting still either , but they did take my mind off how badly I was doing photographing birds. At first I thought I had found a Spring Azure and never gave it another thought, I was happy just seeing this amazing little sapphire blue butterfly. I thought that it must have just emerged because it did not show any of the ware that comes with age. It wasn’t till I got home and put the images on the computer that I realized what I actually had found was a Silvery Blue Butterfly, one of the first blue butterflies of spring. Ahhh the learning curve, what a great part of the Journey !

Complete Report of what I saw yesterday at the West Rutland Marsh chick this .
Pete

Story and photos ©2008 Peter Manship

First Warbler

First Warbler of 2008 I was watching a pair of Northern Flickers performing courtship maneuvers through the woods out over the water, back in the woods then zoom up high in the air and on an on it went. That’s when I noticed another birder coming; it was Don Clark, which for me was as good a find as the Palm Warblers we would find later on. Don is one of those gentle old soles ( he’s really not that old) that has over his life time acquired a wealth of birding knowledge and skills, so it was my great pleasure to bird Herricks Cove with him for a few hours. He freely gives his time and knowledge to others so that they may have an enjoyable time birding too. You to can enjoy birding with Don Clark. On May 4th at 7:30am Don will be leading a free Bird Walk before the 9th Annual Herricks Cove Wildlife Festival. Here are some photos of the Palm Warbler preening/posing for the camera. Bring on the Warblers, It’s Spring!
Thanks for visiting.

Pete

story and photos © 2008 Peter Manship