Greetings all! Took a quick break from the Haunted Trail task list tome to bring you another fun post from Brad. He will be going back out on assignment soon and I wanted to get a few more of his posts out while he still had plenty of time to respond to comments. Before we get to that, we have a new brag to celebrate. Raven needed only 6 more qualifying runs to earn another trip back to CPE Agility Nationals, so we decided to head up north and enter a show for the long weekend. I was concerned about losing all those days prepping for the haunt (basement currently full of 8′ spiders, a 10′ wolf, 5 tombstones and a myriad of other props in various states), but this would take a lot of pressure off Raven (and Linda) if we could get the qualifying checked off early.
Our little rock star got it done. Not only did he get his 6 qualifying runs (plus another for assurances), he also earned his 2nd CPE Championship complete with a giant ribbon – matching his now inflated ego ha. He spent most of the show pointing at it whenever another dog passed by. Showed him Brad’s post and his only comment was “Woof, Mwoof, Gwoof, Cwoof” – canine translated – Where’s MY Golden Crown!?! Sigh, a lot of sass for an under 5 pound Poodle. Anyway, I’ve delayed you too long already, let’s get to another of Brad and Jan’s adventures at Acadia.
Take it away Brad…
Let me help set the scene a little bit. Jan and I were on vacation at Acadia National Park. The morning Puffin and Lighthouse cruise we were scheduled to take had been cancelled because of fog. Not to worry, because we were able to catch one later that day. (See prior published story about Puffins, link here)
The Big Question remained unanswered; what do to for the next five hours until the cruise. See the rest of the park, of course — fog or not. We asked the GPS to take to Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse
As we neared the lighthouse, the fog thickened again; something about warm water and cold air mixing. I drove into the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse parking lot and secured the very last official parking space in the rather small lot. Several others had already parked on the grass, in the striped-out areas, in the ditch along the road, etc. The fog wasn’t the thickest we’d had on the trip yet, but it did add a spooky English mystery story feel to the place.
Hit the jump to see Brad and Jan’s finds on this foggy day.
The trees were dripping with moisture from the fog, so what do Jan and I do? We head straight into the woods. I was amazed that the sounds of the outside world ceased to exist only a few dozen feet into the trees, especially the very loud tourist kids yelling in the parking lot. Bird songs permeated the forest. I whipped out my phone with the Merlin app and let it listen to the birds so I would know who was in the area. (BTW, Merlin is a great, free app to help identify birds in your listening area. We at Intrigued receive no sponsorship from Merlin or All About Birds, but our Legal Team would be happy to talk with you if that’s a possibility.)
Immediately, this bird showed up as being present. Seconds after I began Merlin playback to learn the bird’s song, this bird darted by me and perched on a tree limb. Then to another. And another.
I was finally able to catch the Black-throated Green Warbler (Setophaga virens) sitting still for all of about five seconds. Unfortunately, it was closer than the minimum focus for my lens, so I had to thumb the manual focus ring on my 200-500mm lens. I couldn’t tell at the time, but it looked like this one had breakfast all sorted. They eat primarily insects during the breeding season. A favorite meal is caterpillars.
Then my five seconds were up as it flew to another tree.
This time I scored a more isolated and auto-focused photograph. You can tell where it gets part of its name from this photograph. The feathers on top of its head and “shoulders” are greenish. The black throat is obvious in the first two photographs.
Nearly as soon as I had this third photo, it disappeared. While Merlin could still hear it, I couldn’t see it anymore.
Stepping out of the woods and back into the parking area, we saw cars lined up to park, and it wasn’t even a Black Friday sale. Before we jumped back into the car, Jan saw this LBJ having a snack near the edge of the parking lot.
Song Sparrows (Melospiza melodia) were all over the park. Song Sparrows do have a nice little song . . . when they aren’t stuffing their faces with beetles they find on the ground. I guess the five-second rule doesn’t apply in the bird world.
We left the lighthouse area, giving up a prime parking space, and drove to Pretty Marsh, almost an oxymoron.
As you would expect, Pretty Marsh was a rather visually pleasing marsh area. It also had unimproved camping with a few parking spots in the stately pine trees. Jan immediately took off for the shore while I listened with Merlin. A whole new set of birds came up on my phone.
I noticed there was a fire road into the woods, so off I went to see if I could find Jan near the shoreline. But on the way, there was a very insistent bird song.
The song was coming from a Swainson’s Thrush (Catharus ustulatus).
Variants are also called olive-backed or russet-backed. It is a medium-sized thrush, slightly smaller than an American Robin and slightly larger than a sparrow (pick a variety). Its brown coloring is well adapted for the forest where I found it. I could only see the white speckled breast flashing between the trees. It didn’t seem to need me to call it; it was very curious. But it was even more spastic than the Black-throated Green Warbler because all I really had were three usable photos (two of which are nearly identical).
Microseconds after the shutter clicked for the photos above, the thrush was off. I’m beginning to sense a theme from earlier in the day. I could still hear it, but it was nowhere to be seen.
The second bird that Merlin identified at Pretty Marsh was this snazzy dresser.
The Golden-crowned Kinglet (Regulus satrapa) was just as spastic as the Black-throated Green Warbler at the beginning of the story. I was only able to catch this bird in three photos in the one location. It was hopping from branch to branch, again, closer than my camera could focus. I sensed it was really curious and wanted to see what that large hunk of glass was doing in its neighborhood. At one point, I thought it was going to land on the end of my camera lens. I tried to manually focus the lens. I had barely found the bird in the viewfinder, just four feet away, when it decided to move again.
Notice the bright “gold” crown on its head. The Golden-crowned Kinglet usually raises two large broods of young, despite the short nesting season of the northern boreal forest. The female feeds her first brood until the day after they leave the nest. She then lays a second set of eggs while the male takes care of the first brood. The male manages to feed eight or nine nestlings himself, and he occasionally feeds the incubating female too. What a nice guy!
Just then, Jan walked around the corner of the trail, asking where I had been. We began to discussing our various sightings while walking back to the car. By now, it was time for us to find our way back to Bar Harbor to catch the afternoon boat tour.
Thank you for reading. Use these links if you want to see more bird photos, or photos from our trip to Acadia.
Credits:
Thanks again to Jan and Allyson for proofreading and editing. Thanks to Jan for the landscape photos in this article.
Wildlife Intrigued 
Congratulations, Raven. Beautiful birds, Brad.
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Thanks Tim. I can’t take credit for the colorful birds, I just happened to catch them at, or very near, their prettiest that day. Even a visually impaired squirrel finds a nut every now and then, or so my father-in-law says.
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The birds are beautiful on their own, and you have photos of them showing off their beauty.
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That’s always my goal: catch them doing, or showing, something interesting.
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Ravens says “woof woof woooooof!” (in humanspeak that would be thank you!)
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Tell him “Meeowww!” You’re welcome in cat. i sent you a couple of emails last week.
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Will do – oops, let me go check those emails now, I am sooooo far behind and up to my eyeballs in props – will try to send you some shots.
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Congratulations 🎉
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“Floof hats” indeed! Raven looks floofy all over. And that Golden-crowned Kinglet is really vivid. I’m impressed with your manual focusing skills, you were able to rescue some great shots. Love your description of the enveloping silence of the fir forest – it is a very special experience. The day my hubby and I were at that lighthouse, we met a fellow wearing a T-shirt for the Skeeters baseball team from Sugar Land, Texas, just a few miles from where we live. Small world!
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Thanks Sam! The title, “Floof Hats” came from my editorial team (specifically Allyson). I’d never manually focused that large of a lens that closely to the subject matter before. Have you tried it with the 600mm yet? Good thing it was digital and not film because I think I went through at least two boxes of 36-exposure “film” getting a few usable images. Yes it is a small world. We were visiting a lighthouse on Kauai one time when the tour guide asked everyone where they were from. We answered with the nearest big city and she said she was from there too! She had grown up in Central IL and moved to Hawaii a few years ago to escape the cold IL winters. Small world.
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Haven’t tried manually focusing the 600mm yet. I did try manually focusing my 500, and didn’t get anything sharp enough for publishable images. And, when I used the 500mm with the 1.4 teleconverter, I had to manually focus to get “in the ball-park”, or the focus simply wouldn’t find the target. I think the camera software needs to sense some edges, or it cannot focus at all, so helping it see the edges sped up the focusing time.
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If we could just get the subjects to hold a focus or grey card life would be so much simpler. 🙂
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Raven’s puffiness is completely due to his ego pushing his fur out ha! I am always amazed how small the States seams to be. Was in South Padre several years back at a Whataburger (of course) and a small kid walks by us with our local grade school name on his shirt. Spotted the parents and asked if they were really from Brimfield – they confirmed and ended up living a few houses down from where we (used) to live and we didn’t even know them (as you would expect, our dwellings have some distance between them in the country and unless we need something we don’t tend to interact that much).
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Congratulations to Raven! Brad and Jan, your photos are amazing! I’m going to get the Merlin app because I’m always trying to figure out what is singing. So, thanks for the tip. Safe travels, and I look forward to your next adventure.
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Thank you very much. Yes, Merlin is very handy, and so far for us has been 100% accurate. Jan and I survived the Acadia Puffin assignment on the Atlantic, and are now headed towards the other side of the continent to the Pacific in search of future feature birds.
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We will be heading that way too in a couple of days. I wish you and Jan safe and happy travels, and I look forward to seeing more of your birds.
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Thank you. Would be funny if we end up at the same places over the next couple.of weeks. Look for big glass pointed at birds in forests, near the ocean, or even in a desert.
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We’re heading to northern California and southern Oregon as well as their coasts. Hopefully the wildfires are under control. I will be looking for birds and a big glass pointing at them!
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We are going to SoCal, Yosemite, and deserts around Vegas. So close…
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I guess the closest our paths will cross is when we change planes in Vegas before heading to Reno. I will be so looking forward to seeing what you guys capture on film!
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We are flying to Vegas to start our photo assignment. Intrigued gives us the plum assignment locations. 😀
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…that’s why we get such good employees….we keep ’em happy.
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Raven appreciates the congrats (nothing like seeing his ego get even better hehehe). Definitely get Merlin, you will not be disappointed. Not always accurate, but darn good – also good for your ear training, when you hear a song, guess what it is and then check with the app.
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Just downloaded Merlin. Can’t wait to try it out in our next national park – tomorrow! Thanks for the tip.
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One useful tip..if you hit the red button at the bottom is automatically saves the recording..if there isn’t anything interesting on it, just hit the ‘X’ in the upper right and it will just delete it …saves some space.
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Congrats to Raven and Linda! There goes Raven, showing up his brother . . . again.
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I should have pointed out in my intro that Raven lords his ribbons over Ruger all the time at home. “Hey Ruger, got one of these!?… didn’t think so you stupid fluffball”…note we are trying to get is trash talking under control.
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But Ruger is really cute, too.
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Yes, yes he is…..
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Nice trip. Sounds like a wonderful place to visit. And such a nice, diverse group of birds.
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Thanks Jerry. I was very surprised to find something I’d never seen before. Usually I have Brian or Jan pointing them out for me to catch with the camera. I was glad to have these few find me instead.
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Based on the outstanding results presented, looks like you had a spectacular trip. Terrific bird photographs. I love the atmosphere created by foggy days.
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Agreed Wally. Fog adds a new dimension, and reduces a few others in the process. We really didn’t “see” much of Acadia because of the fog, but we still experienced nearly every corner of.
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Congratulations, Raven! Your giant ribbon is so great!
The photo of lighthouse in the fog took my breath away as soon as I saw it. The place is amazing! The Warbler is very cute and interesting. The Golden-crowned Kinglet is such a beautiful bird. I especially liked the tuft on his head. Terrific moments and photos!
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Raven says “thank you Kaya” (actually sounded more like “woof, woof, wooooof” but we’ve picked up on the canine dialect and can now translate as needed. Apparently “wof, wooof, wooooof” means “get me a treat now”
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Thank you Kaya. The fog did add a “mystery” element to the photos. Though, next time I hope the skies are clear. I, too, was amazed at how curious the small colorful birds were. I suppose they are used to humans being around and aren’t as frightened. I say that purely because of how close they would come to me. Thanks again.
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Well done, Raven, congratulations!
And well done, Brad. Nice photos of some beautiful birds. I get to see Swainson’s Thrush regularly during migration and Song Sparrows year-round, but the other two are much rarer, especially the warbler. And while the kinglet is supposed to occur here regularly, its numbers sadly seem to have plummeted.
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Sorry to hear about the warbler numbers plummeting. I’ve only begun to notice the variety as we travel, and the locals that empty my feeders. Thanks for the kind words on the photos.
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Raven says “Woofyoo” (thank you in dogspeak)
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