Look who the wind blew in!

One of the big stories from yesterday is that Tom, the mink whisperer, spotted a vermillion flycatcher catching flies off the southern tip of the northern island and about 1000 miles northeast of its natural range. As soon as I found out, I hustled back out to see if I could also see it, along with at least 10 other birders, but none of us had any luck. You can see the amazing pictures Tom go on his imgur page, and my best guess for why it is here is that is somehow got blown here by hurricane Helene.

Anyway, while I was at the river again, I watched this kestrel swoop down and grab some hapless little songbird for lunch. The picture looks a bit goofy because the bird was almost completely backlit and its silhouette is about all you could see in the original image. I used software to lighten up the shadows, but it is not perfect.

Here’s a more-natural glimpse of the bird from a different angle.

This morning, it was super windy, so there was little chance of spotty a flycatcher of any kind, but the wind didn’t keep us from seeing these immature or female blue-winged teals. As with the green-winged teals from a few days ago, you can see that they are much smaller than looming mallard hen right behind them, just not as much smaller.

As I was trying to get a nice teal picture, look who swooped in to perch above the southern island for a moment: a Cooper’s hawk.

Meanwhile, this much-smaller merlin was perched above the northern island.

They both soon took to the air, and the merlin eventually drove the hawk away. It seems to always depend on the size of the fight in the bird, doesn’t it?

Anyway, I eventually made it to the pond, and I was just in time to catch the female rose-breasted grosbeak call out for others.

Lastly, I did see one sulphur butterfly struggling in the wind today, but I left it alone and took a picture of this wooly-bear caterpillar instead.

Sorry for all the typos, but I’m behind schedule and gotta run.