Phoebe You Say?

Say's Phoebe in Blenheim?

After work today I had read that this beautiful bird was within an hours drive of Windsor and --hesitantly-- twitched it. This wasn't a life bird for me as I had seen it out west in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley region [link].

 I realized tonight as I wrote this post that I did not really obtain great photos of the bird because I had my "butterfly watching" lens (55-250mm) instead of my 400mm prime lens that I usually use to go birding with - so the few photos that I did take are quite heavily cropped. I really just tried to enjoy the bird through my new binoculars*, and also through Jeremy B's scope. Of course, through the scope, you can really savor the intricate colours of this bird, its cute demeanor and just the overall 'gestalt' of the bird. Jeremy H and I had noted that as it was flying at one point that even the way this bird flapped its wings was interesting to observe. Most of the time that I was watching the bird, it was fly-catching quite aggressively.

Luckily, this bird really seemed to like this area and stayed in the same spot all afternoon long -- even with substantial disruptions. At one point, two farmers towed the tobacco trailers that it was perched on - but it still remained in the same field, perching on the ground or other nearby trailers, tractors and trees. It seems that lots of birders from near and far had a nice chance to see this little avian gem - if only other vagrants would be so obliging!

Good birding!
Dwayne

I picked up a new pair of Binoculars - Nikon Monarch 5's --- 8x42. More on the new optics later.