Closer to Home

In my last post there were pictures of my life scissor-tailed flycatchers. One week later I saw one in Cape May, NJ, much closer to home. In August there was one at Whitesbog in New Jersey's Brendan Byrne State Forest, even closer.

And then there was this one at Bartram's Garden in Philadelphia I saw on November 17th, not more than ten minutes form Patty's house.

The bird was found on the 16th, but we weren't able to visit until the next morning. As  we walked to the field we were joined by another birder, all of us hoping the bird had spent the night. As you can see it had. We found in within ten minutes of arriving. The bird was sitting up nicely when a guy with a big scope and two dogs (!) approached a bit to close and frightened the bird away.

We were then joined by a couple of birding friends. We waited hoping it would return. Happily for everyone it did and very cooperatively posed while we shot away.

Sadly, this bird may be a goner. This time of year these birds should be heading south, not east to our area. If this bird continues to migrated east it will head out over the Atlantic Ocean, perhaps thinking it is the much smaller Gulf of Mexico. A trip it will not survive.