all birds, it is May after all

I am packing all my knives, axes, and about 30 spoons, etc to head up to Lie-Nielsen tomorrow. 

but the photos here tonight are all birds. It is May, after all. 

The owlet, (great horned owl) has been climbing out of the nest; but goes back & forth. Once the downy bits are gone, it’s time to try flying. I hope to see that…

in the nest

 

out of the nest

 

It must be weary; here it’s resting its head. 

But the little birds are the attraction in the woods in May. Harder than all get-out to photograph. Here I snagged a Wilson’s warbler down by the Eel River. 

 

The Carolina wrens are easy to shoot though, they are not the least bit leery of people. 

 

But the bird of the week for me was a Black Crowned Night Heron. I haven’t seen one of these this well in decades. He was sitting on someone’s back deck at Jenny Pond in Plymouth. When I was a young art student; for a while I wanted to be Andrew Wyeth, then I wanted to be John James Audubon. In my bird-drawing/painting phase, the night herons were my most common subject. There was a roost just about a 2-minute walk from where I grew up. Seeing this one reminded me of those days.