Well I wasn’t really birding. I was sitting peacefully reading. But of course I had a camera nearby.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw some movement in the trees. I put my book down, scanned the trees, and saw more movement. Perhaps there were some birds worth photographing.
I grabbed my camera and started taking photos from our porch. The first bird that appeared in my viewfinder was a Black-throated Green Warbler. Then very briefly there were two nuthatches – one of each species.
Almost immediately, I had very quick looks at a titmouse and vireo.
I walked a few yards from the porch, found three warbler species moving through the trees, and took more photos.
The light was pretty contrasty. I was shooting quickly at anything that moved and then stayed still briefly. Less than ten minutes after I first saw them, the birds were gone.
Later, I looked at the metadata of my photos and found that I had been photographing the birds for all of seven minutes. In those seven minutes I had photographed seven species — three warblers, two nuthatches, a red-eyed vireo, and a tufted titmouse.
Here are two more American Redstart photos I took during the brief flurry.
Below is a brief slide show of the stars of the show, the Black-throated Green Warblers.
We have some colorful annuals, attractive to hummingbirds, in pots on the porch. So when a hummer appeared, I would slowly put down my book and pick up my camera. If I moved too fast the hummer would quickly fly away. They seem to be more timid this year than ones I have observed in the past. But over time I was able to get a number of photos of the Ruby-throated Hummingbirds as they visited the flowers while I was reading.
Except for hummingbirds, robins, and song sparrows, these were the only birds I recall seeing from our pouch all summer. Even the chickadees seem scarce.