Boolie’s Blog

This male yellowthroat had flown down near the ground and was mostly obscured by my old nemesis at Ridgefield, the grasses that grow so tall during the spring that they block many of the views around the auto tour.

I already had some nice pictures of the yellowthroat more in the open, so I tried to turn my old foe to my advantage. I used the shallowest depth of field to blur out the surrounding plants and highlight the brilliant yellow and black and white of the yellowthroat peeking out from his surroundings.

Yellowthroats aren’t exactly designed for camoflage.

The yellowthroats weren’t staying still for very long, so even if I got a clear view of one I had to move quickly. This male flew into the middle of the cattails, not up so high as to draw the ire of the blackbirds, but only stayed for a few seconds. His eye was obscured by the cattail in front nearly the entire time, but he stuck his head out far enough for me to get one picture before he flew off.

My favorite picture of the day.

I got up at 5am this morning with yellow on my mind.

Like last week, I hoped to photograph yellow-headed blackbirds up at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. However, the yellowheads were staying more in the interior of the marsh this week. I can’t say that I blame them, last week the red-winged blackbirds were harassing them a bit but this week they would mob the yellowheads mercilessly every time they came to the edge.

Even so, my morning did turn out to be about yellow — not from blackbirds but yellowthroats and goldfinches. After spending six hours at the refuge last week, today I stayed for ten hours. I would have stayed longer but the weather was supposed to be sunny and I had only played to stay for a couple of hours and hadn’t brought enough food and water.

Remind me to ignore the weatherman next time.

I took far fewer pictures than last week but my quarry was more elusive. The yellowthroats were staying mostly out of sight, and when they did pop up to sing they were either chased by the redwings or by other competing yellowthroats. I was ready to call it a day and about to start the car to leave when a goldfinch popped into view. That convinced me to wait a while longer but again was ready to leave when this male yellowthroat finally appeared.

I wish the out-of-focus cattail wasn’t in front of the cattail that he is actually clinging to, but I still think it’s a cute picture. I got a few others I was happy with so stay tuned for those, plus a few goldfinch pictures.