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February 19, 2009 [LINK / comment]

Calliope hummingbird is gone

At the Augusta Bird Club meeting last week, I was told that the now-famous Calliope hummingbird was still hanging around its chosen winter haven on the west edge of Lynchburg. Since it was a (relatively) nice day today, I paid a visit to the Morris home in hopes of getting a second look at the "hummer," but learned to my chagrin that it has already packed up and left. It was a big disappointment, but at least I got a good look at it when I was there last month. It's hard to believe that a neotropical migrant like that could have survived all those nights with single-digit temperatures we have had this winter.

On the way home, I stopped at a stream in a pleasant ravine full of green laurel bushes along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Everything was silent except for the rushing water, and I was about to give up on finding any interesting birds when out popped a Winter wren, yet another very late first-of-season bird for [me]. See the newly-updated Annual arrival page.

Back home, I was pleased to see more Pine siskins at our feeder by the window, and was lucky to finally get a superb closeup shot of one. Previously, I had taken photos of that species with our digital video camera, which yields still images that are rather grainy. Here is the high-quality image you get with a serious digital SLR camera, a Nikon D40:

Pine siskin

Posted (or last updated or commented upon): 20 Feb 2009, 8: 31 PM

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Blog highlights have been compiled for the years 2010-2012 thus far, and eventually will be compiled for earlier years, back to 2002.


Explanation

The "home made" blog organization system that I created was instituted on November 1, 2004, followed by several functional enhancements in subsequent years. I make no more than one blog post per day on any one category, so some posts may cover multiple news items or issues. Blog posts appear in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the chronological order in which the posts were originally made:

  1. Wild birds (LAST)
  2. War
  3. Science & Technology
  4. Politics
  5. Latin America
  6. Culture & Travel
  7. Canaries ("Home birds")
  8. Baseball (FIRST)