Birding not Banding

We have been doing some banding but not so much due to travelling, etc. We've managed to get some birding in though and I thought I'd share two recent birds we have seen here.

Yesterday we saw the Yellow Breasted Chat that was reported in ONTbirds at Ashbridges Bay







It looks like a first year male and he was quite enjoying the berries on the
European euonymus-
they seem to be his
favourite!



He posed quite nicely for me too-I just got this new camera and have now quite figured it out yet-not sure why the shots aren't sharper but you get the idea!


and earlier in the Fall we got wonderful views of a Virginia Rail at Colonel Sam Smith Park-the bird came out repeatedly from the reeds and was quite tolerant. We managed to share this sighting with a birding group that was passing through.




While still
trying to identify him
I got quite the good look
at his beak as you can
see when he managed to
just stick it out

making i.d.ing just
a little bit easier :D

















In news from San Francisco they have released some of the birds from the oil spill-you can again read a wonderful posting about it in How's Robb Blog How fabulous there were wonderful volunteers to help-I only wish I could have been one of them!