The 29th of August was a Sunday, but I got up early anyway, and went out to Iona Beach to try to get some morning landscape shots, and to check out the birds once the soft morning light was gone.

I got there about a quarter to seven, before the park gates open to cars. So I parked by the gates, got my camera out, and walked in. I took a goodly number of landscape photos, but I really wasn't that inspired, and maybe Iona isn't the place for me to take landscapes. Here's one of the best of the bunch, which came out lighter than the scene really was at the time.

Realizing that I felt uninspired, I proceeded towards the jetty to check out the birds. I saw a bunch of Great Blue Herons, and some ducks in distance. Tthe ducks included Greater Scaup and what was possibly Northern Pintail. Northern Pintail males are quite distinctive in their breeding plumage, but the females are fairly nondescript as are the males in their nonbreeding plumage. So mainly I saw some small brown and black lumps that didn't turn into very good photos.

As I was about to get on the big cement pipe that is the raison d'etre of the jetty, I saw a small hawk ahead of me. I believe it was a juvenile Cooper's Hawk, but it could have been a juvenile Sharp-shinned Hawk. A Sharp-shinned is about 11 inches bill to tail, and a Cooper's is about 16. Knowing the scale of the pipe this bird is on, I think I could lay a 12-inch ruler on this guy's back and have some bird left ofter, leading me to think Cooper's. Also, in other photos I have, he has a white patch on the back of his head, which is consistent with the juvenile Cooper's drawing in one of my guide books (but not the Sharp-shinned).

The hawk was around for a little while, and I got pictures of him at four different perches before he flew away.

I headed on out the jetty. There were a few gulls around, and also some Caspian Terns, like these two, who appear to be a pair. You know what they say: "One good tern deserves another.".

I got a few decent shots of him, but they were all at long distance.

On the way back in, I became fascinated with the patterns of mud and water in the tidal flat to the south.

After reaching land (but while I was still on the jetty pipe), I started pishing (making funny sounds to try to attract birds) near some brush that I have seen warblers in on several occasions. As I did, I saw the flash of a white bird flying in the distance. Looking closely, it seemed that the white bird was blue-tinged.

I started thinking about all of the white birds that I know are present in the area, and I couldn't come up with one that had white in combination with blue. I figured that this was one odd bird. Maybe albino or leucistic.

Simultaneous with the thinking, of course, I pulled up my camera and started clicking. Here's a shot of the white and blue bird, with another shot of him in the inset. From these shots you can see that the body is a cyan or sky blue, and the wings are white. I couldn't tell that much when I was out there in the field--he just looked bluish white.

The mystery bird flew into the brush that you see in the previous photo and disappeared there. I resolved to track it down.

So I ventured forth into the brush. The brush was pretty thick, with lots of branches, and it grew well over my head. It was tough going.

I searched the brush high and low. In and out. I went through several different clumps of brush. I set my tripod down so I'd be less encumbered, and searched some more. The brush constrained me to a few paths though each clump, and I was afraid that the bird had already flown the coop. I hadn't seen any birds at all in there.

I had been tromping though the branches for about thirty minutes, and was getting fairly tired and discouraged. But just then, things began to look up.

...just like that Yellow Warbler, which I found in the biggest clump of brush. I was pishing and I heard a couple of melodic notes, not a call I was familiar with, from my left. Going to where I thought the sound came from, I looked around and found my bird. I was able to get a few photos before it relocated, but none of them were in focus or clear. This is the best I could do in Photoshop with them; it took a lot of manipulation to even get it this good.

Some of you may recognize the bird--it's a Budgie. This bird was most probably a domestic bird (somebody's pet) and it escaped and made its way to the beach. My friend Rob told me that Budgies are very hearty birds that are native to the outback of Australia. They survive freezing cold at night and blistering heat in the day. They are able to find food in the barren outback desert. So I have no worries about this guy surviving...provided he doesn't get picked off by a hawk or eagle.

Anyway, it was exhilarating to have tracked down such an escapee. I think I've seen an escaped Parrakeet before, but this is the first escaped bird that I've been able to photograph.

Clambering out of the brush, I took some time to shoot some of the local flora.

I came across another yellow warbler, and was taking some photos of it, when I saw another hawk in the sky. This one was a juvenile Northern Goshawk. It was my third hawk species on the day.

I saw a few mushrooms in the grass near where I had left my tripod when photographing the caterpillar. They looked to me like Meadow Mushrooms, which are a popular edible species. I would have had to made a closer examination to be certain, though, and I wasn't particularly hungry anyway.

So I laid down on my belly in the dewy grass to take mushroom photos. I got my shirt a bit wet, but I guess that it was safer than when I was lying in the road taking caterpillar photos (which was before I transferred the caterpillar to the cement pipe).

I got to my car and put my tripod away. Then I drove back to the beach area, where I had been walking, and went out again, hand-holding the camera. I decided to go back to try to get more warbler photos. However, my first subject was no warbler...it was a Carolina Locust. There were a few of them in the area.

I thought that that'd be it for the day, but later on when I got home, I met a couple of new neighbors of mine. Here's one of them, who goes by the name of Paddy.

And Paddy lives with this cutie pie, who's called Junebug.

I only found out their names about a week later, though. They've moved into the unit that's just down the outside stairs from where I live, which is right at the limits of Zippy's territory. I think he's had a scrape or two with Paddy while they negotiate turf boundaries.

Always ready to stalk an odd bird,
(and a bit of an odd bird himself),
Tom