Sunday, April 22, 2007

Strolling Along The Airline Rail Trail.

YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER

Many years ago, some of the abandoned railroad tracks were converted to walking trails. What a great idea! Many of these trails pass through beautiful natural areas.

Today, I walked a portion of The Airline Rail Trail in Hebron/Amston Connecticut.

I was hoping to find a few warblers, and I was not disappointed. I probably walked about a mile along the trail. In that stretch I was able to get "premier" views of 15+ each of Palm and Yellow-rumped Warblers gleaning insects from the trees. What I mean by premier is one of those special days when the sunlight shows the colors of the birds perfectly. There were no leaves on the tree to block the view either. I'm surprised that I didn't get better pictures , but I spent more time appreciating views than trying to take pictures.


This Downy Woodpecker seems to be inspecting its new home.-"Hello-anybody in there?

The Eastern Bluebird was a little far for my camera, but did mange to strike a pose. Who could complain about a day like this? -Not me-I was loving this 70 degree sunny weather. I probably saw about 30 species but the quality of the views I had was what made this day a special one.

Hey Mr. Mallard-can you find my car keys for me? I dropped them in the water. "No problem-bottoms up." After he gave me my keys back it was time to go.

10 comments:

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

Great pictures here!
Gotta love a duck butt!!

Ruth said...

We have a number of old rail lines turned trails around here. The closest one is called the Iron Horse trail. It was a beautiful day here too. I hope some of the migrating birds get here before the leaves are fully out on the trees. Nice pictures!
ruth

Anonymous said...

We have some wonderful rails to trails in my neck of the woods! Great birding spots! Love the yellow-rump ohoto! That's another species I have not seen yet this year!

Mary said...

The trail looks beautiful - 27 miles long? There is a lot to see there.

Your warbler photo is much nicer than the one I took last week :o) All of your photos are great! And, like Lynne said, gotta get a duck butt!

Anonymous said...

wish that duck was around when my cell phone fell in a pond last year...

Larry said...

Lynne-when I saw the duck butt I thought of your bird butt post and laughed to myself.

Ruth-thanks-I'm sure the warblers will be there any time now.-Maybe some are already there.

Monarch-Rails to trails is an excellent idea.

Mary-thanks about the picture-I'm glad there are other people besides myself that can't get perfect pictures all the time.-trail is like 50 miles but it is split up in different sections.

Corey-Where were you birding? I think one of the fishermen pulled up a cell phone on the end of his hook.

Cathy said...

I could have used that duck last year when I dropped my keys off a marsh boardwalk (well . . . more like 'through' it)

Days like you had yesterday are what we birders live for. I think your photos are great. All I got today, with a few exceptions - we're bird butts :0)

Larry said...

Cathy-There seems to be a bird butt
epidemic going around this week thanks to Lynne.

Betsy True said...

I watched a pair of downies build a nest in a neighbor's tree last year. The male would fly in and work on digging deeper into the tree, enlarging the hole. Then the female would fly in and reshape it. The difference was very obvious. I thought, typical--the male builds the home and the female remodels. LOL!

Larry said...

Betsy-Interesting little tidbit of information on the downy-thanks.