Saturday 4 June 2011

Lazu-like-it

After a day of doing stuff that needed doing, and of course enjoying the fabulous weather at the same time, I eventually managed to squeeze in a bit of early evening birding. Some hockey game or other was taking place, and the streets were deathly quiet as Jenny and I walked down to Government House for a stroll.

Within a couple if minutes, I stopped to scan a distant bird sat high up in a fir. Cowbird.
I then brought my bins down a touch and spotted a towhee sat on top of a snag. Just to the left of was another bird with its back to me... hmm, it appears to quite blue.
Blue?
A male lazuli bunting! Lovely - just the very bird I've been half expecting to bump into down here.
As it happened, I had my digital recorder in my pocket, and the sole passerine song I have on there is - yep, you guessed it - lazuli bunting.

I played the recording and the bunting came hurtling in to check it out.
As I only had my compact camera with me, the pics are quite dreadful, but at least show the bird.
I didn't want to disturb the bunting unduly, by playing the song too much, and it soon went back to feeding among the house sparrows it seemed to have temporarily hooked up with.
We saw little else along the woodland trail, but as we returned to the area the bunting was first seen we heard it singing.
It seemed quite mobile, singing from numerous prominent, and not-so prominent, perches in one smallish area.

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