Life Bird - Ruby-crowned Kinglet

This is the Ruby-crowned Kinglet. I had wanted to see and photograph them for so long and was finally successful.  This super tiny birds are swift jumpers and flyers so I feel lucky any of my shots came in focused. 

The ruby crown in his head indicates this is a male. 

Olympus OMD-EM1X,  Olympus 300mm lens + MC-20

Green Heron - Life List

Eastern Wood-pewee - Life Bird

Crazy story…  I took this photo last week in our backyard and saved the image thinking it was a young Phoebe.  Today (8/7) I was looking at E-bird researching a new trail to explore and saw a sighting of an Eastern Wood-Pewee. Never having seen or heard of this bird before I did what all good birders do, Google’d images of it and found several which showed me this was the bird I photographed in the back yard last week. Later this evening I was in the backyard and this Pewee was sitting on the fence singing.  As I watched it I opened my Merlin Bird ID and played the song and call.  The cutie answered right back to both.  Both the call and song matched perfectly.  

And this is how I saw and identified my first Eastern Wood-Pewee 😀

Another look.. Summer Tanager

Summer Tanager

New life bird for me!  

I had seen the shots of red in and out of the trees and a neighbor also told me she had seen this bird in her yard so while out walking this week I took the camera in case I saw the Tanager.  We were almost home when I looked up and there it was sitting on a high branch in perfect site waiting for me to photograph it.

Blue Indigo - Lifer List Addition

This beautiful Blue Indigo appeared in our backyard this weekend. He/she was very shy and scattered the moment it realized we were watching it. I was lucky enough to photograph it and add this bird to my Lifer List.