Andrew Clem home
Andrew Clem banner

Blog post


Monthly archives
(all categories)


March 28, 2004 [LINK]

Western tangager That mysterious yellow bird paid us a return visit early this morning, and this time I got good enough looks and photos to confirm that it was indeed a Western tanager. That species has never before seen in either Augusta or Rockingham County! Brenda Tekin and Gordy Adamski came by later, and after a long, agonizing vigil we were finally rewarded with several return appearances, enabling us to get some more video and photos. In the adjacent photo, you can clearly see the wing bars, indented tail, and yellow rump, which are all distinctive field marks of the western tanager. To see a frontal view, which shows more color, roll the mouse over the image. I also got some video of a yellow-bellied sapsucker and a chipping sparrow this morning; the latter species has only migrated north to these parts of Virginia during the last few days or so. We also saw several purple finches flying all around, and robins, goldfinches, cardinals, and chickadees were all singing raucously. Brenda will be posting the far-superior images she took on her Web site shortly: www.birdsofvirginia.com.

Later YuLee Larner came by, and after a long wait, she got some great sun-lit looks at the western tanager as well. With any luck, I'll get another chance to take a photo of the bird in full sunlight this afternoon. Or maybe not: I just heard a small bird scream right outside my office window, and ran to the back door in time to catch a glimpse of a Cooper's hawk flying away, only a few feet from our back porch.

With any luck, I'll get the next batch of photos from Peru posted later today. Eastern phoebes, chipping sparrows, and tree swallows have all been seen in recent days, more signs that spring is really here!

Posted (or last updated or commented upon): 17 Sep 2010, 3: 59 PM

(unformatted URL)
      .



This post is over a week old, so comments are closed.


© Andrew G. Clem. All rights reserved. Your use of this material signifies your acceptance of the Terms of use.


Hits on this page (single blog post) since July 2, 2007:

Category archives:
(all years)



This (or that) year's
blog highlights

Blog highlights have been compiled for the years 2010-2012 thus far, and eventually will be compiled for earlier years, back to 2002.


Explanation

The "home made" blog organization system that I created was instituted on November 1, 2004, followed by several functional enhancements in subsequent years. I make no more than one blog post per day on any one category, so some posts may cover multiple news items or issues. Blog posts appear in the following (reverse alphabetical) order, which may differ from the chronological order in which the posts were originally made:

  1. Wild birds (LAST)
  2. War
  3. Science & Technology
  4. Politics
  5. Latin America
  6. Culture & Travel
  7. Canaries ("Home birds")
  8. Baseball (FIRST)