Indigo Bunting

 

This past 4th of July, my wife and I vacationed in Bandon, OR.  We've done so for the past four years.  This year I decided to rent a big lens as there are many great birding opportunities there.  So the day before we left I drove into Portland and picked up a 200-400mm f4 zoom along with a 1.7x teleconverter from Pro Photo Supply.  It's the first time I had tried this lens.

Coincidentally, there had been recent reports of an Indigo Bunting patrolling some grassland near the Port of Vancouver in Vancouver, WA.  This wasn't so far from where I picked up the lens, so I couldn't resist trying my luck at getting a few shots of this vagrant.

The area was off limits to the public, but the gravel drive that lead to the property was not, so I sat in my car, using it as a blind, and waited. As I watched a small flock of House Sparrows, I got a glimpse of a blue bird fly up over a small mound to my right.  Sure enough, it wasn't long before I saw the bunting further up the drive. 

 

Then it disappeared only to reappear on a sign very near me, then dropped down on a blackberry branch and began to sing.  How cool!

 

 

It came and went three or four times before I left, at one point spending some time in some early summer Teasel.  All-in-all, well worth the trip and great start to my 4th of July celebration!

Indigo Bunting

I'm in Montreal this week and I got a little time this afternoon to do some birding. I decided to visit Mount Royal Park since it was near my hotel and sounded promising on many sites on the web.
Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate very well as it was gloomy and rainy; kind of reminded me of Oregon. The bird numbers were very low. I'm not sure why. May have been the time of day, time of year and the fact that it was heavily wooded, but I didn't even hear that many birds.
Being a large hill or mountain in the middle of a city makes it a prime location for radio communication antennas. The area around the antennas was generally cleared. In one such area, I got lucky and came upon a couple of male Indigo Buntings. I first saw them as they flew in front of me; two small, bright blue birds. One landed on a railing above me. The lighting was challenging, but I did get a couple of reasonable shots.
New life bird number one for this trip!