This weekend I went birding with two groups and did a bit of birding on my own. I have always found it difficult to get good bird photos with a group. During the weekend I did get some photos of bloodroot, false hellebore, and Trillium erectum, also known as red trillium and purple trillium, among other names.
On the renamed Frigid Friday walk along Mink Brook in Hanover with the Mascoma Audubon, I was able to get a quick shot of a Palm Warbler desperately foraging very low to the water.
On Saturday I joined Chris Rimmer for his annual birding and trash pick-up event in Norwich. We first walked the railroad tracks west of Foley Park and saw a group of Double-crested Cormorants in the Connecticut River.
Chris and Nathaniel Sharp spotted two Horned Grebes in the river, apparently a first for Norwich. Unfortunately these are not the two they saw but perhaps they looked something like this pair that I photographed elsewhere.
Down at Pompy Oxbow, our initial group of 5 was joined by a photographer from the Valley News.
That was the only place all morning that I was able to get close enough to a bird to get a decent photo, in this case a White-throated Sparrow.
A large group met us at Kendall Station. Nathaniel retrieved a can down by the water, and I photographed some reflected early spring colors.
A homeowner invited us onto her lawn to see a Bald Eagle sitting in a tree on an island far downstream.
Wanting to see if I could find some birds closer up, I visited the Rail Trail at Ice House Road in Lebanon. There I found a Blue-headed Vireo, Yellow-rumped Warbler, and a Black-and-White Warbler.
In Norwich Saturday, I photographed a bloodroot. In Enfield Sunday, I photographed purple trillium and false hellebore.
Finally, this morning I was lucky enough to find a somewhat-rare fogbow over Lake Mascoma.
Closely related to rainbows, fogbows happen with the sun low in the sky behind the viewer. The higher the sun, the lower the fogbow. Because of the very small size of water droplets that cause fog, a fogbow has only very weak colors. In many cases, when the droplets are very small, fogbows appear white and are therefore sometimes called “white rainbows”.
You can see another Fogbow photo and read about more neat stuff in the sky if you CLICK HERE.