4 Bird Sightings to Close Out August

I didn't do a whole of of birding in August. I read so much about killer worms, mosquitoes, ticks and amoebas that I was torn between just staying home or giving up reading. I decided on one last outing before the end of August. 

I chose to take a walk along some tracks towards a big marsh. The sign says that trains are active again on these old tracks but the overhead speed bumps would probably slow them down a little.

There have been many inland shorebirds this month including the Solitary Sandpiper which has a distinct eye ring and sort of greenish-yellow legs.

Some poor kid must have got his egret kite caught in the bushes.

There was a healthy population of Green Herons in the area. This is one of four that I saw but most of them blended in too well with the surrounding for me to get a picture.

This looks like a young oriole to me. I don't have time to look it up so I'll just go with that unless someone corrects me.
 

There are some things that I enjoy about August but being out in the woods watching birds is not at the top of my list. I'm looking forward to September with lower temperatures and a welcome invasion of migrating hawks!

Tree Egrets And Sandpiper At Fairgrounds

By August I am a little burned out on birding and just looking forward to fall weather. I struggle to come up with places I would like to check out factoring in heat, bugs, and an overabundance of foliage. I settled on visiting one of my old go-to spots at the Portland fairgrounds. This is a place that rarely disappoints me and you never know for sure what you might run into. This time is was great Egrets in a tree.

That was the little spark I needed to make me feel as though it was worth getting out instead of sticking around at the house doing yardwork. 

When I think about it, I enjoy fish out of water type of movies. That is probably the reason seeing Great Egrets in a tree at the fairgrounds instead of the shore makes this particular sighting  more appealing to me.

Then I turned my gaze from high up in the trees to down at ground level. A Solitary Sandpiper was practically stepping on my shoes. I think it was getting ready to untie my shoelaces!

There's always something good to see at the fairgrounds when there is water left over from the rainstorms.
 

Hibiscus Therapy And the End Of Pumpkinzini

Unfortunately, I learned first hand about the Woolly Adelgid this year. It is a tiny aphid-like insect that clings to the underside of pine needles and suck out all of the sap. It killed 5 of my Eastern Hemlock trees which were probably 60 years old. So I cut them all down and started to create a new outdoor space. I ground the stumps, planted some new shrubs and put down some mulch.

It needed a little color so I tried a perennial hibiscus. I decided to try to do this blog post from a backyard gazebo and was pleased to find out that I'm able to pick up my internet signal from here. Bluebirds are singing and I'm able to get a little hibiscus therapy while I'm typing away. It has come to my attention that you can also make tea from the dried flowers so that's an added bonus!

An update on my pumpkin? Zucchini? patch. These have to be just plain old pumpkins. They must have just mislabeled the plant. I've never grown pumpkins before. Hopefully, they will turn orange at some point.   I noticed some are dark green now while others are light green like this one. I'll be curious as to how they turn out in the end!

I can already feel fall just around the corner. I'll soon be chasing sparrows and searching the skies for migrating hawks.