After many years of driving long distances on the spur of the moment to catch "rare" birds (for me anyway), I found myself breathless as a Black-Throated Blue Warbler landed on a branch partially obscured by leaves right outside my office window, some 10 feet away. I froze and reached secretly towards my desk top camera and, too late, off it flew. Bummer. I got up, giggled and ran to the bedroom windows that face the direction it took off in. No bird. Bummer but giggles. Another bird for the window list.
Then as I sat there, I realized I was witnessing a wave of warblers amidst the flocks of Blue Jays and woodpeckers. As I peered down at my water feature, dozens of warblers were darting about in the somewhat drab fall colors and just as I began to reach for my binoculars, camera still in hand, the Black-throated Blue returned and hung out for a quick bath and dance with the other warblers. I am sure there were a variety of other warblers, but my camera clicked repeatedly on the Blue. After downloading the pics and staring at repeated amazement of the flocks of jays that have been hanging out for a week or so, I noticed my pictures of my Blue - some 80 of them - all looked about the same - just enough to be able to tell they are of the Blue. Anyone out there got a decent SLR they would want to donate to home officed birding freak who at times gets weary of being basically still unemployed for almost a year, and stuck with a general camera? All donations considered. Toss in a great quality zoom if your heart calls out to you. Another great Minnesota birding day from a chair in my office. I love the giggles I get from birds - still. Thomas Maiello Angel Environmental Management, Inc. Maple Grove, MN ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
