{"id":4773,"date":"2015-08-02T14:26:32","date_gmt":"2015-08-02T18:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=4773"},"modified":"2015-08-02T15:32:16","modified_gmt":"2015-08-02T19:32:16","slug":"a-big-day-photographing-small-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=4773","title":{"rendered":"A BIG Day Photographing SMALL Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"~\"<\/a>
~For some reason this is a bird that I have struggled to photograph in the past couple of years – Blue-gray Gnatcatcher at Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge, 8\/2\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Well okay, maybe it wasn\u2019t THAT big, but I did do pretty well photographing passerines today. I walked the Liberty Loop at the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge early this morning, and the birds just seemed to make themselves a little more available than they have lately, particularly two birds that I never seem to get a good shot of: Yellow-throated Vireo<\/strong> and Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.<\/strong> Additionally, the early morning light was nice for photos and I seemed to catch most birds in full or nearly full light on\u00a0a nice dark background, which is a look I personally like. It was a nice walk with over 50 species seen or heard; I will include a species list at the bottom of this post. As usual, I was curious to see if any new shorebirds had moved in – I was happy to see at least one of the Semipalmated Plovers<\/strong> that Kyle Dudgeon had let me know about earlier this week was still around – that was my first of the season. Other than that, no new shorebirds to report, in fact numbers and variety of shorebirds both seemed to down; I did not located any Greater Yellowlegs, Semipalmated Sandpipers, nor Pectoral Sandpipers.\u00a0Most\u00a0the shorebirds were located in the back pond of the loop and in the WAY back of that pond, to boot. I did have one Lesser Yellowlegs just to the left of the viewing platform, where water levels have dropped a bit, so that was nice.<\/p>\n

\"~\"<\/a>
~This was a treat for me! A Yellow-throated Vireo that ventured out of the treetops! Liberty Loop, 8\/2\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"~\"<\/a>
~Here’s another flycatcher that I’m going to have to leave unidentified. Any thoughts on this bird, please comment! Liberty Loop at Wallkill River NWR, 8\/2\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"~\"<\/a>
~Common Yellowthroat just off the trail at the Liberty Loop, 8\/2\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"~\"<\/a>
~A sweet looking Downy Woodpecker at Wallkill River NWR, 8\/2\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"~\"<\/a>
~Here’s another bird I don’t get too many shots of – House Wren on the east side of the Liberty Loop, 8\/2\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"~\"<\/a>
~Ruby-throated Hummingbird at the Liberty Loop, 8\/2\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here’s my list for the morning:<\/p>\n

\"~One<\/a>
~One of only 2 Orchard Orioles I had on the day, they seemed to have moved through for the most part. Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge, Liberty Loop Trail, 8\/2\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Canada Goose
\nMallard
\nWood Duck
\nGreat Blue Heron
\nGreat Egret
\nGreen Heron
\nTurkey Vulture
\nNorthern Harrier
\nSemipalmated Plover
\nKilldeer
\nSolitary Sandpiper
\nSpotted Sandpiper
\nLesser Yellowlegs
\nLeast Sandpiper
\nMourning Dove
\nBlack-billed Cuckoo
\nRuby-throated Hummingbird
\nRed-bellied Woodpecker
\nDowny Woodpecker
\nPileated Woodpecker
\nEastern Wood Peewee
\nUnidentified Flycatcher
\nEastern Phoebe
\nEastern Kingbird
\nGreat Crested Flycatcher
\nYellow-throated Vireo
\nWarbling Vireo
\nRed-eyed Vireo
\nBlue Jay
\nAm. Crow
\nTree Swallow
\nBarn Swallow
\nNorthern Rough-winged Swallow
\nWhite-breasted Nuthatch
\nHouse Wren
\nMarsh Wren
\nBlue-gray Gnatcatcher
\nAm. Robin
\nGray Catbird
\nCedar Waxwing
\nCommon Yellowthroat
\nField Sparrow
\nSong Sparrow
\nSwamp Sparrow
\nNorthern Cardinal
\nIndigo Bunting
\nBobolink
\nRed-winged Blackbird
\nCommon Grackle
\nBrown-headed Cowbird
\nOrchard Oriole
\nAm. Goldfinch<\/p>\n

\"~\"<\/a>
~One more shot of the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Liberty Loop 8\/2\/15.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well okay, maybe it wasn\u2019t THAT big, but I did do pretty well photographing passerines today. I walked the Liberty Loop at the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge early this morning, and the birds just seemed to make themselves a little more available than they have lately, particularly two birds that I never seem to … Continue reading “A BIG Day Photographing SMALL Birds”<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,19,18,13,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orangecounty","category-photos","category-songbirds","category-sussexcounty","category-wallkillwildlife"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-1eZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4773","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=4773"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4789,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4773\/revisions\/4789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}