Sunday Shots: Monday Edition, 06/26/23

Between the weather, the time of year, and some personal obligations, there wasn’t much going on for me birding-wise this past weekend. Still, I like to try to post at least once a week, and I did get a few images worth sharing.

Early Saturday morning, I walked in the rain out to the back pond at the Liberty Loop. I was hoping for Least Bitterns, Sora, or anything exciting. Instead, I got plenty of Red-winged Blackbirds and Song Sparrows, lol. Birds were remarkably scarce, especially since there was almost no foot traffic on the trail due to the poor weather. Afterwards, I drove a little of the black dirt area, and then walked the trail at Goosepond Mountain where I had a notable bird – I flushed a trailside American Woodcock in a large field off of the main trail.

I had a funny thing happen at Owens Station Crossing after I left the loop. I drove in to OSC to see if anything was going on. There wasn’t much, but I did see this:

I was perplexed as to why the middle PUMA was perched nearly completely upside down. I was very embarrassed when I texted the photo to Linda Scrima (who works with the PUMAs at Owens Station), and she informed me that it is actually a statue that they put there to lure in early scouters, but it had somehow turned upside down, lol. It reminded me of when I was first starting out birding around 2012 – a long-time Orange County birder told me about a location in the black dirt to try for Short-eared Owls. I went out one evening; I arrived a little late and it was getting dark quickly. Shortly after arriving, I spotted an owl perched on a post, a few hundred yards out. I took loads of photos, trying to capture it in the darkness and distance. It wasn’t until I got home and looked at the photos on the computer that I saw it was a plastic owl, lol. You gotta be able to laugh at yourself sometimes, ha ha.