Watching Flickers From A Natural Blind

I was on my way to a birding location when I decided to check a field that was along the way. I never made it to my intended destination. Instead, I spent the next couple of hours hiding in the bushes watching birds. While out birding , I've been trying to make a conscious effort to find areas where the birds are most active and try to get close to them without scaring them away. In this particular field which is located in Middletown, I noticed that many birds were landing on a dead tree snag which a large bush and other vegetation in back of it. I had to do a little bushwhacking to get into position but eventually settled into a good spot where most of my body was hidden. I even stuck a couple of branches in my hat to blend into my surroundings a little better.

I've tried this sort of thing before and a lot of times it doesn't work out but this time it worked like a charm. I did run into a couple of minor problems. I had difficulty getting my tripod legs to set flat on the ground because of all the roots and tangle. When I went to fold the tripod back up I noticed that the little rubber caps on the bottom of the legs had fallen off when I had to pull the legs back up out of the vines. I couldn't find them so I just bought new ones which were better anyway. The other problem was that I was often looking at the underside of the bird which wasn't always a good angle for taking photos but the birds put on a great show.

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-At one point, there were 7 Northern Flickers stretching their wings, calling, climbing, and tapping on wood just a feet away from me. I read in the David Sibley book, The Sibley guide To Bird Life & Behavior, that Northern Flickers have a variable clutch size of 3-12 eggs. An experiment was done by a researcher who would remove one egg a day from a flicker nest but always leaving at least two in the nest. The female flicker ended up laying 70 eggs by the end of the season. I found that to be interesting. The whole section woodpeckers had good information.

I watched as young Eastern Bluebirds would land on the highest point of a branch only to be chased away by another bluebird which would land in the same spot.

A handful of Cedar Waxwings stopped to rest before moving on to other areas.

This Eastern Kingbird has a mouthful of something. It doesn't look very eastern kingbirdy from this picture but it was at the time I was there.

I believe this is an Eastern Wood Pewee. They're easier to identify when they're singing but this one was quiet. I couldn't get it in focus using the auto setting so I blindly turned the wheel to a different setting and tried the manual focus button. It did come into focus but who knows what kind of crazy setting I had it on.

This Blue Jay was last bird I saw before leaving. I plan to keep a record of places where I'm able to watch birds while hiding in the natural surroundings. Birds seem to behave differently when they're not threatened by human presence. This makes them more interesting to observe and easier to photograph.

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Here is a video of some flickers in action.