The five photos immediately below are an addition to this blog. A rare Varied Thrush was seen at College Park in Dartmouth for at least two days, Thursday and Friday April 11 and 12, 2024. I photographed the bird briefly in the rain both days.
The rain Friday was harder than Thursday, while the bird was in view, but the light was surprisingly brighter. The following five photos are from Friday. In several of them the rain can be clearly seen.
Here is what I wrote Friday about the photos I took Thursday:
On a dark, drizzly, dreary day, dreadful for decent digital photography, Dartmouth was the place to be yesterday afternoon. I traveled to College Park to try to photograph a Varied Thrush which Joseph Ransdell–Green found earlier in the day. This is a Pacific coast bird, quite rare in NH.
There were about a half dozen other folks also looking, which was fortunate because I could not imagine how it could be found in these woods under these conditions. After I was there for about an hour, the bird was spotted. I joined the group and saw it far off in the trees after its location was pointed out to me.
I try not to post poor photos, but it was such an unusual bird, the first varied thrush I’ve ever seen, I decided to go ahead and do it anyway. At least you’ll be able to see what I saw.
And then it flew.
While searching for the thrush, I photographed everything that looked like a bird. So here are some more less-than-sharp birds from College Park late yesterday afternoon.
Dark-eyed Junco
Black-capped Chickadee
Eastern Phoebe
The biggest surprise came after I arrived home. I thought the last bird, that I got a quick few shutter clicks of, was perhaps a chickadee. It turned out to be a Golden-crowned Kinglet. Why do birds seem to love poor weather?
I also photographed a ruby-crowned kinglet, white-breasted nuthatch, song sparrow, purple finch, and American robin, but I decided not to post any of those photos. I’ve already put enough marginal photos in this post.
