Flowers of the marshes

[tigertoy]

I finally got my butt off the chair around 4.  I decided to head over to the marsh area at Kennekuk with my flowers-n-bugs lens.  It was sunny, warm but not hot, generally a good time to go.  The first marsh is as low as I think I've ever seen it.  Very little bird life, by numbers or species, though quite a lot by total weight because the geese were having a convention at that first pond -- there were over 100 in that small area.  One mystery bird on the beaver pond; looking at the book, I guess it was a juvenile green heron (that somebody decided is supposed to be called a green-backed heron this week, but I don't see the point).  It was the size and configuration of a green heron but with a lot of white underneath, quite unlike an adult and even more than the book shows on a juvenile.  But since it seems unlikely that I've discovered a new species, that's probably what it was.  I took a lot of shots of flowers, with some efforts at composing artful shots, mostly just trying to capture the beauty of very small things, with little success; I need to both carry the tripod (which I sometimes do) and force myself to stop and use it (which I almost never do even when I carry the thing).  The depth of focus is just too damn short.  Butterflies seemed few until I got past the martin house, where there was a patch of flowers they liked.  I took a bunch of shots of closeups of butterflies which should be great.  I did not walk very far, but for some reason I felt tired and ready to go home anyway.

Comments

Re: Flowers of the marshes

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

want peectures! :)

[birder2.livejournal.com]

Every time the AOU meets, they change some bird name--which is why the "little green heron" morphed into "green-backed heron" a while back. There are 2 theories as to why they do this--some believe they have a deal with the publishers to make changes so that the publishers can justify bringing out a new addition. I think they do it just to prove they've had a meeting at which they did something.