Short Trips to the Local Park
While we all enjoy the adventure of going to far away places to photograph birds, sometimes the best birding can be at your local park. You can frequent local parks throughout the week without significant investments in time and energy. This allows you to see how the park changes over time and how birds adapt to those changes. My local park is Masterson Station Park in northern Lexington. I visit it often, especially during the week with the long sunny summer days.
Today I went after work and was surprised to see that large grass fields had been mowed and the grass had been baled. I guess they feed it to the horses. It was disappointing to see as that grass was fantastic habitat for a number of birds. An area where two weeks ago I photographed a Common Yellowthroat was all mowed down.
Still, I walked for about an hour and counted 25 Red-winged Blackbirds, 20 American Robins, 4 Northern Cardinals, 3 American Goldfinch, 3 Barn Swallows, 2 Blue Jays, and 2 Song Sparrows. The goldfinches were what I focused on. One bird landed in some uncut grass about 25 yards from me where it was feeding on a puffball of seeds. I stayed put and took some safety shots from a distance, but the white flowers in the background were a bit distracting.
American Goldfinch. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S lens at f/6.3, 1/1250 sec, ISO 1000.
Wanting to get in a better position to get the white flowers out of the background, I slowly moved towards the bird at an angle. This worked and the bird stayed put. Eventually it flew off when a Robin got too close.
American Goldfinch. I don’t know what you call the fluffy part of the seed, but I liked this composition with the fluffy bit flying off to the left. Nikon Z8 with Nikkor Z 800mm f/6.3 VR S lens at f/6.3, 1/1250 sec, ISO 900.
After these shots I walked around some more and photographed a couple of juvenile Barn Swallows perched on a branch. Otherwise it was a pretty quiet day. Who knows what I’ll see, or not, on the next trip to Masterson Station Park.
The month of July is shaping up to be a quiet birding month. I’ll likely continue to explore parks in the Lexington area, but no big trips are planned next month.
August is a different story though. Hummingbirds will be on their post-breeding southerly migration and there are three hummingbird festivals that I intend to visit.
The first is the Land Between the Lakes Hummingbird Festival. It will be held August 3-4 at the Woodlands Nature Center in Cadiz, KY. The following weekend, I’ll head north to Connersville, IN for the Indiana Audubon Hummingbird Migration Celebration. This is a one-day event on August 10. The following Saturday I’ll head south to Knoxville, TN to check out the Ijams Hummingbird Fest on August 17. From what I can discern from each of the even websites, hummingbird feeders are put out at the nature stations and all you have to do is hang out to see the hummingbirds. It should be a great opportunity to really focus on hummingbird photography. In preparation, I did go ahead and order Glenn Bartley’s book on Hummingbirds. It’s actually my second copy; my first is in storage.
That’s the world of birding in my neck of the woods. What are you seeing in your community? Are you planning any birding trips soon?
Happy birding!
