{"id":7113,"date":"2017-05-15T21:12:17","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T01:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=7113"},"modified":"2017-05-15T21:12:17","modified_gmt":"2017-05-16T01:12:17","slug":"amazing-afternoon-at-sterling-forest-sp-051517","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/?p=7113","title":{"rendered":"Amazing Afternoon at Sterling Forest SP, 05\/15\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"
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~Photo nemesis no more – HOODED WARBLER at Sterling Forest SP, 05\/15\/17.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ll tell you what, I had an absolutely incredible afternoon out at Sterling Forest State Park. And, you know what? I totally had a feeling about it. As I arrived and was parking my car, a sense of optimism came over me. I was dressed appropriately in muted colors, it was just a beautiful afternoon, and I just felt like anything was possible. The one question I had was regarding the wind – I thought it might be a little bit too breezy for songbirds, but that proved not to be the case.<\/p>\n

I got out of my car and headed down the trail. Behind me, right by my car, I heard a song and I wasn’t sure what it was. I turned around, and perched in a tree right across the road from my car was a beautiful HOODED WARBLER. This bird has been sort of a photo nemesis for me; I’ve never gotten a good close look at one before. The bird stayed put and sang away as I crossed the road and I was able to get some decent shots.<\/p>\n

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~Beautiful bird! GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER at Sterling Forest SP, 05\/15\/17.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A little bit later, I was walking a trail and I heard the call of a GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER. I moved slowly and I could see that the bird was likely calling from the other side of a tree that was about 30 yards off the trail. I tried to wait it out, but then got impatient and tried to get further down the trail for another vantage point and though I did not see it fly, the bird must have flushed. It wasn’t until I was on my way back, in the same area I heard the bird again. This time I had the patience to wait it out. Eventually the bird came around the tree and exposed itself to me – I was thrilled just to get a look at the bird. I was taking some\u00a0distant pics, just hoping for the best, when the bird picked up and flew into a lower tree right in front of me. I couldn’t believe it! I was able to take a bunch of shots before the bird moved on; I’ve never gotten such a great look at a GWWA!<\/p>\n

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~One of 2 beavers at Sterling Forest SP, 05\/15\/17.~<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I had one final excellent moment\u00a0–\u00a0I was walking the trail with a swampy area to my left. It was relatively quiet and I was disappointed because I’ve done well at that swamp in the past. I was scanning for birds when out of the corner of my eye I saw a pair of beavers swimming in the water. I stayed completely still and one came my way\u00a0and got within twenty feet of me! It was really\u00a0cool to see it so close up; shortly thereafter, the beaver moved on and so did I. On my way out, I noticed on the far side of the swamp, a single Great Blue Heron sitting high up on a nest. What an afternoon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ll tell you what, I had an absolutely incredible afternoon out at Sterling Forest State Park. And, you know what? I totally had a feeling about it. As I arrived and was parking my car, a sense of optimism came over me. I was dressed appropriately in muted colors, it was just a beautiful afternoon, … Continue reading “Amazing Afternoon at Sterling Forest SP, 05\/15\/17”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orangecounty","category-songbirds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5i3kT-1QJ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7113","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=7113"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7119,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7113\/revisions\/7119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orangebirding.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}