When we awoke it was 17° F outside. Chilly. The kind of day you want to stay in bed and sip your coffee.
And when we arrived at the site everything was covered with frost. Very pretty ...
... but very cold. And the birds were all hunkered down.
It is out there somewhere ...
So we went bushwhacking. For the first hour or so it seemed we had the place to ourselves. And while we managed to scare up some sparrows they appeared to be mostly Song Sparrows. A common species we have in our yard.
Then more folks started showing up. People we knew or people we knew, knew. And we all spread out, walking the fields, and scaring up many sparrows. Mostly Savannah Sparrows, a grassland species, but not the one we wanted. Still cool to see so many though. And we knew the target bird was in the flock with the Savannahs. So we kept searching.
After another hour the group gradually split, smaller groups searching different parts of the fields.
And then the call, "It's over here!" So that's where we all went.
And there it was. As I said, another peak-a-boo bird. Frustrating. And while the image shows that I did see it, I was the last in the crowd to do so. Oh, I had seen it fly away twice, just a blur, while others had good looks. And then it was 'gone'. Not far, as this is a 'hopper' not a 'flyer'. But in all the grass ... frustrating indeed.
But of course it was re-spotted. And I got the image above. And then it flew closer. And I got a bunch of images like this one:
More children's games. I see you!
And finally:
Really good looks were had by all. But most importantly, by me. A Leconte's Sparrow. A midwestern species which is an infrequent visitor to these parts.
We had arrived at 8:00 and left after 11:00. And it was a cold three hours. But a fun morning as well.
And I got a life bird, # 1907. Very cool.
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