{"id":1486,"date":"2013-06-23T17:54:45","date_gmt":"2013-06-23T21:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=1486"},"modified":"2013-06-23T17:54:45","modified_gmt":"2013-06-23T21:54:45","slug":"basha-kill-by-kayak-62313","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=1486","title":{"rendered":"Basha Kill by Kayak 6\/23\/13"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It’s still nice to get a good shot of one of our more common birds. Red-winged Blackbird at Basha Kill WMA 6\/23\/13.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was feeling a bit uninspired when trying to figure out where to bird this morning. With migration long over and the summer kicking in, I was looking to do something a little bit different. It was\u00a0right about this time\u00a0last year that I started birding by kayak out at the Basha Kill, so I figured I would give it a shot. I put my kayak in the water at the route 209 boat launch just before 7 am. I paddled to Haven Road without seeing very much at all – a huge difference from last year when I had Wood Ducks and duckling at just about every turn, Pied-billed Grebes, and no shortage of Great Blue Herons. I was hearing plenty of birds on the perimeter of the kill, and I also was enjoying watching the Tree Swallows hunt and then perform an apparent mid-air food exchange. I tried to get a photo of this behavior, but I was unsuccessful.<\/p>\n

At Haven Road I could see an adult Bald Eagle perched on the other side of the bridge. The water level is still very high, so I had to walk my kayak over Haven Road to continue. I moved very slowly and eventually got in good position to take some photos. This was clearly the highlight of my outing, I snapped away until the Red-winged Blackbirds and Eastern Kingbirds became too bothersome for the eagle and it flew.<\/p>\n

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Bald Eagle perched near Haven Road, as seen from my kayak 6\/23\/13.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Here the eagle is starting to get bothered by the small birds buzzing around…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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I believe that is a female Red-winged Black bird right behind the eagle as it took off.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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An here, it appears that an Eastern Kingbird is hitching a ride! It always amazes me that these small birds are willing to tangle with an adult Bald Eagle.\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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I took a quick cruise over to the Nature Trail when I finished my paddle, and picked up my best bird of the day by far: a pair of NORTHERN WATERTHRUSHES. This was a life bird for me, giving me two life birds this weekend – not too bad! They were splashing around in a puddle in the parking lot when I arrived, pumping their tails repeatedly. I tried to move closer for a photo and flushed them; I never did see them again. I had a nice photo opportunity at the end of the trail, where I stumbled upon about 10 Wood Duck ducklings. I think they are so sweet.<\/p>\n

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Pure sweetness – a Wood Duck duckling at Basha Kill WMA 6\/23\/13.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Here’s a couple more…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It ended up being a great morning for birding and for bird photography. Here’s my species list for the day:<\/p>\n

Canada Goose\u00a0 10
\nWood Duck\u00a0 25
\nMallard\u00a0 6
\nGreat Blue Heron\u00a0 5
\nTurkey Vulture\u00a0 1
\nBald Eagle\u00a0 1
\nVirginia Rail\u00a0 1
\nCommon Gallinule\u00a0 2
\nMourning Dove\u00a0 1
\nRed-bellied Woodpecker\u00a0 1
\nDowny Woodpecker\u00a0 1
\nNorthern Flicker\u00a0 2
\nEastern Wood-Pewee\u00a0 3
\nEastern Phoebe\u00a0 2
\nEastern Kingbird\u00a0 10
\nYellow-throated Vireo\u00a0 4
\nWarbling Vireo\u00a0 3
\nRed-eyed Vireo\u00a0 1
\nBlue Jay\u00a0 2
\nAmerican Crow\u00a0 1
\nNorthern Rough-winged Swallow\u00a0 1
\nTree Swallow\u00a0 25
\nBarn Swallow\u00a0 6
\nWhite-breasted Nuthatch\u00a0 2
\nVeery\u00a0 2
\nWood Thrush\u00a0 3
\nAmerican Robin\u00a0 X
\nGray Catbird\u00a0 X
\nOvenbird\u00a0 2
\nNorthern Waterthrush\u00a0 2
\nCommon Yellowthroat\u00a0 2
\nAmerican Redstart\u00a0 6
\nYellow Warbler\u00a0 10
\nSong Sparrow\u00a0 3
\nNorthern Cardinal\u00a0 1
\nRed-winged Blackbird\u00a0 X
\nCommon Grackle\u00a0 8<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was feeling a bit uninspired when trying to figure out where to bird this morning. With migration long over and the summer kicking in, I was looking to do something a little bit different. It was\u00a0right about this time\u00a0last year that I started birding by kayak out at the Basha Kill, so I figured … Continue reading “Basha Kill by Kayak 6\/23\/13”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19,9,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos","category-sullivancounty","category-bashakill"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-nY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1486"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1496,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions\/1496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}