Unofficially summer - Memorial Day
Chipping sparrow at Morgan Farm Nikon Z8 with Z100-400 @400 1/1000, f/6.3, ISO 1000
Being Memorial Day, we have launched the summer season (even if it is not truly summer). The last few days have been anything but summer-like with temperatures in the 50s with overcast skies. Finally today, we have sunny skies and high 70s. Yes, it appears summer-like weather is here. Did not want to venture far from home with the holiday traffic, so I returned to Cragston Lakes and Morgan Farm for a look on how the seasonal changes are progressing here. Bird song was quite prominent with the Chipping sparrows and Red-eyed vireos being the most vocal. The vireos were high in the canopy and did not make great subjects for photography, but the Chipping sparrows were close by and down at eye level. I manages to capture a few shots of the perched birds, but finally one gave me a nice stretch of the wings to make that shot just a bit more special than all the others.
Barn swallow - Nikon Z8 with Nikon Z 100-400 @ 400 (heavily cropped). 1/1600 sec, f/11. ISO 1400
The other species which was easily seen today was the Barn swallow which swept over the lake’s surface picking off the little gnats which hovered at the water-air interface. It never ceases to amaze me how these birds can maneuver at such high speeds and with accuracy sa as to be able to snag little bugs the size of a pinhead out of mid-air. Their speed makes trying to capture one in flight with a camera seemingly almost impossible, so I will settle for this rather blurry image as a “documentation” shot and be happy with that.
It was great today to see so many wildflowers starting to bloom. The last time I was here only a couple of weeks ago, the blossoms were few and far between, but now the brilliantly hued flowers are making their presence known. These tiny Narrow-leaved Blue-eyed grass blossoms were popping up all along the pond’s edge as were the buttercups seen in the next image.
Meadow buttercup
Other than the birds, the only other wildlife that was evident were the tadpoles swimming in the shallows of the lake. Adult frogs and toads are not being heard nor seen yet, but the tadpoles that will eventually morph into the adult amphibians are plentiful. How many will reach adulthood is hard to say, but there is certainly a bumper crop trying to make the “leap” from tadpole to adult frog. Not sure whether these are bull frogs, green frogs or other species at this point, but it will be of interest to visit in a few more weeks to see what has emerged. Always something new to observe during the transitional period of spring into summer.
