On Franklin Hill Farm: A Great Blue Heron

And other birds I’ve been blessed to see and sometimes photograph

By Bettina Sperry

For the past several years, I’ve had many opportunities to observe our local population of woodpeckers, bluebirds, kingfishers, various owls, and even eagles that nest several miles down the road from Franklin Hill Farm, by our neighborhood lake. I’ve even had the blessing of finding the most beautiful bird’s nest constructed out of duck feathers.

Alive morning

My wife and I stood on the patio
beyond the window yesterday  to
view a Green Heron in a distant tree

Thoughts of various pleasing projects ran through my mind as I prepared our breakfast this morning, accompanied by the sort of "meta-thought" that the more immediate thoughts were enlivening me and I appreciated them.
    The pleasing projects weren't earth-shaking, just little, ordinary things that make up my life. Write to someone. Tinker with some wording on a recent post. Ideas for further reflections on the illusion of free will (such as the potential effects of the idea on people, and on people collectively). Set up my digiscoping equipment this week (maybe get a photo of that Green Heron my wife spotted yesterday, or of the Red-headed Wookpecker I thought I saw on a feeder while we were messing with the fieldscope). Deposit that check.
    Thoughts of these ordinary activities enlivened me by distracting me from bodily aches and pains, by engaging me and giving me something to look forward to, by assuring me that the day and the week (and the rest of my life if I am fortunate to have such thoughts every morning) need not be a drag but can ever be adventurous. (Do I hear some of you laughing at the revelation that such activities constitute "adventure" for me?)

And the meta-thought was a bonus—it provided the theme for today's post. Get it done this morning, and then on to, say, digiscoping, which has been neglected so far for thirty-six days of retirement. Not acceptable.
    Get it done this morning, not partially done in the evening then finished the next day, as I confess has been the case with several posts lately. Not acceptable. (But so far a dependable fall-back when needed.)
    Do it now. Be alive now.

Finches and a Wren ahopping

Whose heart doesn't dance at the sight of a feisty crowd of frolicking, feeding birds! I was taking a break yesterday from writing a community-watch newsletter when I happened to look out into the back yard. I had to set up my digiscoping equipment right then and there (even if I don't get the best results taking photographs through two panes of glass).

Click to enlarge photos, none of which has been retouched

Then Carolyn thought she saw "our Woodpecker" on a tree directly behind the feeders. I took many but none was focused. Either the double-paned glass really played havoc at 200+ feet or my camera was focusing on the wrong thing amongst all the branches.

Peck on wood

I used a different strategy today (from my last outing—not reported here—when I moved my setup several times trying without success to get a photograph of the elusive woodpecker, who moved from one spot to another so quickly I couldn't react in time). This time I set up my digiscoping equipment and sat down in an unfolding chair to wait patiently until a woodpecker might show up.

First photo

Second photo, taken seconds later;
the last I saw him for today

    My setup consisted of a Nikon ED50 fieldscope, a Nikon camera attachment FSB-U1, and a Nikon Coolpix P300 camera. It was about ninety feet from the tree, and the woodpecker was about fifty feet up.

Thanks to my wife for some identification:

The woodpecker is a juvenile red-headed woodpecker, a threatened species. When I first saw the bird some months ago, I thought it was a juvenile red-head but I couldn't be sure until I saw these photos. A mature red-headed woodpecker doesn't have the black bars among the white feathers, and the head is even redder. Notice how this guy has some black showing in his red head. Check out the photos on this Red-Headed Wookpeckers page for comparison.